Swallow Hall Murder

by Noreen Wainwright

  * * *

  Edith wished she hadn’t had those sharp words with her brother this morning. She badly needed someone to talk to. She could probably have rung Julia or Henry. In fact, she should definitely ring Julia, but she wanted to talk to Archie, really. This vague sense of dread about that house, Swallow Hall—it would be difficult enough to convey it to someone face-to-face, yet alone over the telephone with the possibility of someone at the exchange listening in on their conversation.

  She hesitated outside his surgery door. He’d be catching up –so much for leaving it all to the locum.

  This was stupid. He was talking about going to Canada, for goodness sake. The time was gone for petty squabbles. And she did want to talk to someone.

  “Can I have a word? Oh, Archie, you do look tired. I thought the point was to leave it to the locum chap? Not be working well into the evening.”

  “I’m not doing a lot; just catching up on what he’s been doing, as it happens. What’s the matter?”

  She perched on the chair normally used by patients, and inhaled slowly, in an effort to calm her racing thoughts and heart, but instead inhaling a good whiff of carbolic and methylated spirits which made her cough. She should know better as she spent so much of her own time in here.

  “I’m sorry for quizzing you about the money. I suppose at the end of the day, it isn’t my business, is it?” She paused, but he didn’t rush in, and that made her uncertain. Had she really been in the wrong then, for even mentioning several mysterious withdrawals—she was supposed to be involved in this practice, wasn’t she? Even if she normally left the practice finances to him. She and Phoebe sent out invoices and banked the cheques but, the overall accounts she left to her brother and his accountant.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, Edie. I get too rattled, too easily these days. Why do you think I’m looking further afield?” He still didn’t elaborate on the accounts.

  “That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. I’ve just dropped Hester Turner off at Swallow Hall. We were at Julia’s house earlier in the evening, and the police, your friend, Inspector Greene and young Brown came up and took her away for questioning. In the end, she wasn’t arrested, but they did take her into the police station and kept her for quite a while too. I went with her, or at least I went to the station, under my own steam. Partly so I could give her a lift home afterwards.”

  “Bloody hell, Hester Turner. I didn’t even think she knew Sean.”

  “Neither did the police, which was the reason they wanted to talk to her. She did know him, but was cagey about how well. She’d been seen in pub with him, though—the Drover’s Arms in that little place, hamlet or whatever it is where he lived.”

  “If he was seeing both of them, cousins, then he was playing a dangerous game. Especially as he was bailing out, anyway.”

  “I don’t think he was. I’m not sure why, but I think it was more complicated than that. For one thing, I’ve never known Hester to bother with boyfriends. She used to laugh at love-struck VADS, I remember. Thought we were stupid, wasting our time. She wanted a career and to travel. Her independence. She certainly achieved all that.”

  Archie reached into his inside pocket and took out his pipe. He went through the usual ritual, of filling and tamping down and lighting. Edith found it restful to watch, and the sweet smell of pipe tobacco got rid of the clinical air of the room.

  “There was more to Hester than that, Edith. She fell heavily for one of the medicos when you were all in London. A chap by the name of Rollo Cooper-Brown. Good-looking chap, tall, dark and handsome as they say in the women’s magazines, and even given a gallantry award for sticking it out in a field hospital whilst under fire. Oh, and he was married. Rumour had it that he didn’t give her any encouragement, but I don’t know about that. I knew Rollo, but he wasn’t the type to talk. Others did, and apparently, our Hester made a nuisance of herself.”

  The unease made Edith restless, that unpleasant, familiar, jittery feeling. Dr. Uxbridge said that it was anxiety and that it would go away, advised her to just sit back and let it take its course. The trouble was that sometimes maybe you should listen to these feelings of unease. Shouldn’t you?

  “I have a bad feeling about dropping her off at Swallow Hall tonight, Archie. She mentioned that Serena’s mother, Kate was out visiting a friend in Harrogate. I could tell that she was angry with Serena and what you’ve just told me…if anything were to happen to Serena, I couldn’t forgive myself. You probably think I’m over-reacting. Maybe, I am. I hope I am. But, there was something pent-up in her.”

  “I don’t think you are as a matter of fact. What to do, though? Go out there? Ring Greene?”

  Edith got up.

  “I don’t know. Something. I can’t settle for the night knowing I dropped an angry woman off and my last feeling as she got out of the car was of worry. It probably doesn’t bear any relationship to any of this, Archie, but that damned place. It gives me the creeps.”

  She made a decision, not about who she was going to telephone, but that she was going to contact someone. Dithering indecisiveness wasn’t an option.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “I’m going to ring the police.” All day, it had been niggling Ivy. It was like a ringing in her ears, or an eyelash floating in her eye, irritating and distracting her from her work. Then, it had come to her. She was polishing the furniture in Miss Mary’s bedroom, a thankless task what with all those knick-knacks and objects which had to be moved before dusting.

  But, all of a sudden came the thought—why? Miss Elizabeth had been the domestic tyrant, running her fingers along ledges, sharp eyes looking for faults and omissions and if she even sensed the smallest chink, in she homed for the kill. There would be a list of your failings as long as your arm. Ivy thought of that hard, pursed face, the blue eyes cold.

  Then, a change would creep into the litany of complaints, and it would be all about the much worse things you had supposedly done, stealing, going out at night to go with God knows who. If you tried to argue back, she got worse; if you stood there trying to fade into the flocked wallpaper, she got still worse.

  There was nowhere to go and no defences. At those moments, the heat would rise inside Ivy’s chest, and her heart would race. A nauseous feeling would make her regret whatever she’d last eaten. So, she’d stand there and take it like a lesser human being, and then go away and honestly think that this hot fury coursing through her veins couldn’t be good for her.

  Dealing with the rest of the women in the house was a piece of cake in comparison. By all accounts, the old lady had been another tyrant in her younger day, but she was old now and didn’t bother upsetting the servants. She’d try to wheedle information out of you about what the others were up to, but it wasn’t hard to dodge her questions.

  Miss Mary was just a poor old thing, and Miss Kate was the person you could go to when you were ready to tear your hair out. The two younger women, Serena, there all the time, and Hester, who was more of a visitor were quite nice at times. In fact, they could be helpful.

  Then, it came to her. In a flash of memory. Routine was the devil. It made it very hard to remember specific dates and what you did and didn’t do. One morning’s work, one evening’s work was so like another that it dulled the senses, and especially the memory.

  But, the flash came to her, and she’d gone back downstairs and mooched about.

  “For goodness sake, whatever’s the matter, Ivy? You’re like a hen with an egg. And you’re as pale as a ghost…while I’m handing out the compliments.”

  “I think I remember something,” she told her. Sylvia shook her head and said that she thought Ivy was getting things out of proportion, and she was getting carried away.

  For about a minute, the relief flowed over Ivy like a cool shower of rain on a sticky hot day.

  But what if Ivy’s gut feeling was right, and Sylvia was wrong? She glanced at her face in the bevelled mirror over the small hand basin in the corner of the ki
tchen. Sylvia was right. She looked pale like she’d seen a ghost. But, her granny always said that ghosts couldn’t hurt you; it was the living you had to watch out for, not the dead.

  “Talk to the inspector if you think it’s the right thing to do, Ivy. Look, go upstairs and get your jobs done a bit early and come down and we’ll have our cup of tea. By the time we’ve done that, you’ll have worked it out…the best thing to do.”

  So, Ivy went upstairs. Her routine had only changed in respect to taking in Miss Elizabeth’s drink. She checked all the fires and that all was made safe. When she’d first come to work here, that used to terrify her, the responsibility of it. She’d lie in her narrow bed and would have to make herself stay there, so strong would be the urge to get up and do one last check. The thought of a spark falling onto a hearth rug or a door left unlocked and someone breaking in…but, she’d begun to trust in her own efficiency and so long as she followed the same pattern each night, she couldn’t go wrong. She always started with the main drawing room, the one used by the family when they weren’t all upstairs sulking in their rooms.

  Tonight, Miss Mary had gone to bed early, appearing bewildered and happy in turn since the death of her sister. It could go either way for Miss Mary. She would become even more nervy and dependent on the others in the house, or she would thrive and bloom. Time would tell.

  The shrieking assaulted Ivy’s ears, making her stomach turn to water and her heart thump in her throat. She put her hand to her neck. It was as though she was choking. Shouting was one of the worse things in Ivy’s world. It brought memories of terror and helplessness.

  Still. She wasn’t a child now. It wasn’t an option to pull the blankets over her head and stick her fingers in her ears.

  She knocked loudly on the door. How stupid was that? Habit, probably. She turned the knob on the door and pushed it quickly open. Then, she stopped, and everything slowed right down. It was like looking at a terrible painting, and it all imprinted itself in her mind. It was a stupid thought, but it was like one of those transfers children put on the backs of their hands and blow on.

  The picture filled in bit-by-bit. First, she saw blood. Then, a knife. The shrieking stopped as she went further into the room.

  “Stop,” she said, loudly, firmly as though she wasn’t only a servant girl.

  * * *

  “Is Inspector Greene there? I expect he’s gone home.”

  Edith had wound the telephone wire round her fingers and stood with the receiver clamped tightly to her ear.

  “Yes, Miss Horton, he has,” said Sergeant Brown.

  “I wouldn’t normally be here myself at this time, but there was just something I needed to do. Can I help you?”

  It was a relief. Not having to speak to Greene.

  “I’m not sure it is anything…but, look, I talked it over with my brother, and we both thought that when in doubt and all that…”

  Brown’s senses went into high alert. His hearing sharpened, and he was desperate to move, do something. Though he had to sit and listen for a moment. No, not sit…he stood as she spoke on.

  “I drove Miss Turner home after you and the inspector had spoken to her. It probably sounds…I don’t know…vague, to say the least, but I had an uneasy feeling when I dropped her off. She spoke a little, though not in any detail about the man. Bracken. But I got the strong sense that she was angry with her cousin. That’s it, really. As I say, I’ve nothing concrete to go on…but I wanted to tell someone what I’d felt. I almost knocked on the door and followed her in. But, that seemed ridiculous. What excuse could I have given?”

  “Leave it with me, Miss Horton, and thank you for ringing. You did the right thing.”

  He put the receiver down feeling ten feet tall. Raring to go. Secretly pleased that the Inspector had gone off home after they’d finished talking to the Turner woman. Then, he saw Robinson.

  * * *

  “Give me the knife, Mrs. Grant. Serena, give me the knife.”

  Serena Grant stared at her. “Get out of here, Ivy. You don’t know the first thing about this. Go back down to the kitchen where you belong.”

  You arrogant thing, Ivy thought in the midst of the shock and terror. “No, you’ve hurt her. Maybe killed her. I’m not going anywhere. We need an ambulance.”

  “She deserved it. Bitch. Never had a man in her frigid, bluestocking life and comes up here and takes mine.”

  God, she’s going to have a fit.

  Serena’s eyes had rolled back, and there was foam in the corners of her mouth.

  Never mind her, though. Half Ivy’s attention was on the long, white hand holding the knife, waving it about, the other half on the woman laid on the hearth rug, moaning. Blood showing now, dull red, spreading slowly through the lilac-coloured cardigan.

  “We’ll never get that stain out, she thought, then shook her head. What a stupid thought. Miss Turner might be dying. You saw it in the pictures sometimes. The person didn’t die quickly like when they were shot, in the westerns. But, the blood and the life seeped out of them. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “I said go, Ivy. Go back downstairs. Telephone who you like then, I don’t really care. It’ll be too late for her, and my life without Sean is worth nothing anyway. Is it, Hester? Is It? Is it? Is it?” Her voice grew louder with each syllable.

  If it wasn’t for the knife, Ivy would have slapped her across the face for the hysterics, and she would have enjoyed doing it.

  She looked at Serena. About nine stone. Standing, darting looks around the room, high voice, excited. Dangerous. A groan made Ivy look at the woman on the hearthrug. You wouldn’t let an animal suffer like that and do nothing.

  Ivy shouted to distract the crazy woman in front of her and launched herself straight at her like a battering ram. One try, that was all she’d get.

  * * *

  Just shut up, Brown wanted to say as he drove the pair of them out to Swallow Hall. This was the biggest gamble he’d ever taken. If anything happened, if anything had already had gone wrong or would go wrong while he was in charge, there would only be one neck on the line, and it wouldn’t belong to this young fellow by his side who just kept prattling inconsequentially like a child on a school trip.

  Swallow Hall, that house, the great, ugly barn of a place that Brown had hated on first sight was quiet and almost in darkness. Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this silence broken by rustling in the shrubs, and a horrid sound, scream like a baby, which he recognised as that of a marauding cat.

  He lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it drop three times and pressed the doorbell. He couldn’t hear anything from the house, and with these old bells, you never knew whether they worked or not.

  Then everything happened. Another vehicle scorched up the drive, searing the gravel and the door was opened by a weeping woman. It was Sylvia Casey, the cook, and he was being almost pulled inside, Robinson in his wake and then two ambulance men carrying a stretcher.

  His heart stopped racing, and his skin stopped prickling with nervous energy, and a strange calm overcame him. “Come on,” he said to young Robinson.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “So Sean Bracken wasn’t the self-absorbed, semi-recluse who wouldn’t commit to one woman?” Julia directed her question at Edith.

  Archie, Edith, Henry and Julia sat in the Herdsman.

  “No, apparently not. Serena was the one who wouldn’t leave Swallow Hall.”

  They sat in silence thinking about this. So, she must have been cast from the same mould as her grandmother and aunts. Couldn’t live happily in the place; couldn’t leave it.

  “I think you’ll find that money and inheritance played a part in that,” Archie said. Edith pushed down that niggle she still had about the practice finances. Now was not the time.

  “But, in all the time we knew Hester…” Julia put down her glass on the small table. “She never showed any interest in men; she was…is…lovely of course, in her quiet way, but, well…no fem
me fatale.”

  Henry shrugged and spoke for the first time. “Maybe that was the attraction for him, Julia. She was a straightforward woman, no games.”

  “And, one thing for sure, Sean was ready for change.”

  No change for him now, though.

  Sometimes, life kicked you in the face and came back for a second go. Serena had been cast from the same cloth as her aunt—and her grandmother.

  “She took a huge chance in persuading Elizabeth to kill him.”

  Edith frowned. The thought of that scene had replayed too many times in her mind. The man, stooped or bending down, and the slight figure of Elizabeth with all that strength looming over him wielding a deadly weapon. She shook her head.

  “It didn’t pay off in the end, though. Elizabeth must have threatened her…dizzy with the power of what she’d done. What she now held over her own niece.”

  Edith thought about Aunt Alicia’s story about Elizabeth’s bullying career at school. She hadn’t changed. Not really.

  Henry’s voice brought her back to the moment, the warm pub, friends, the glass of wine on the table in front of her, and Max laying under the table.

  “Ivy remembered something, a simple small thing. Serena had taken the Horlicks into her Aunt Elizabeth that night. That was all.”

  They sat in silence.

  * * *

  Albert Greene let himself into the blessed peace and silence of his cottage. He was dog-tired, and really, he had no reason for it. When it came to it, young Brown had done the work. Not a bad lad. It didn’t do to go telling him, though.

  ABOUT NOREEN WAINWRIGHT

  Noreen is Irish and now lives in the Staffordshire Moorlands with her husband, a dairy farmer. She works part-time as a mentor at Staffordshire University and the rest of her time is spent writing. Many of her articles and short stories have been published and she has co-written a non-fiction book.