by Fiona Walker
‘You’ve been shot?’ she gasped.
At the head of the table, hidden from view behind the alliums, Poppy suddenly launched into an outburst against Hector of such volume and passion, her guests sat mute and fearful, torn between the action at either end. Only Vin continued to chomp noisily on a third helping of lamb.
Under Legs’ ministrations, Byrne let out an angry groan, still grasping at his chest, swollen hand clutching at his jacket. As she pressed her ear to his mouth, at the same time feeling his wrist for a pulse, she heard him gasp out a few words.
‘What?’ She pressed her ear closer.
‘Adrenaline shot,’ he croaked. ‘In my inside pocket. Looks like a pen.’
Anaphylactic shock, Legs recognised with sudden clarity, feeling urgently inside his jacket for the medication.
‘Where do I do this?’ she asked in a panic as she uncapped it.
Unable to immediately answer, Byrne slumped forwards, struggling ever more to breathe.
Legs yanked his shirt out from the back of his trousers and found an expanse of smooth, tanned skin at the base of his back, revealing the tops of heavenly spheres of paler buttock cheek rising from his jeans’ belt.
Muttering a quiet apology for causing any pain, she plunged the little hypodermic pen into the first sphere.
‘I feeel paiiiin!’ came a wail, and it was a moment before Legs realised that it was Poppy who had let out the cry, not Byrne. And she was in fact completely oblivious to her son’s discomfort, her focus remaining on her own angst, ‘When I carve stone, I sometimes feel like I am cutting at my own flesh to reveal the bloodied truth beneath!’
The effect of the adrenalin was almost instant. Byrne was already trying to sit up, looking red-faced and groggy.
‘Thank you,’ he muttered breathlessly. ‘I should be OK now.’
She slipped into Kizzy’s vacant chair and stared at him in shock. The swelling was already dissipating and the redness fading, but he still looked dreadful, his eyes half closed and his breath shallow.
‘Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?’ she checked anxiously.
‘I’ll be fine. Just give me time.’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘You’d better get back to your place.’ He looked past her to Francis, who was listening intently to his stepmother and ignoring the medical crisis completely, although the damson streaks in his cheeks had deepened, the muscles there quilted as tightly as a fisherman’s knots.
She handed him back his adrenaline pen. As he took it, she felt his fingers hold hers for a moment.
‘Thank you, Heavenly Pony,’ he breathed in an undertone.
‘Any time,’ she said, then felt stupid because it sounded so banal.
Returning to her place, she found a great slab of cheesecake waiting there, and Howard still eager to talk about his future literary career. ‘Do you think I should write under a pen name?’ He asked, now extremely tight and falling over his words.
‘Well Howard Hawkes might get confused with the filmmaker,’ she said distractedly, still watching Byrne who looked agitated but was recovering fast.
‘I was thinking of Jean Pool?’ he suggested breathlessly. ‘It’s what I call myself when I dress as a woman.’
Legs reached nervously for her wine and checked on Byrne again.
The rest of the dinner guests seemed perfectly happy to carry on as though nothing untoward had happened. Apart from a few ‘Feeling better Jamie?’ enquiries, the incident was politely ignored. At Farcombe Hall, even kitchen sups were decorous enough to mean that ill health at the table was not acknowledged unless one was bleeding so profusely it threatened the napiery.
Poppy was far too short-sighted and had been far too busy talking to notice her prodigal son’s allergic dice with death beyond the alliums, and was now holding forth about the festival and how hellish Hector was being: ‘He’s gone quite mad. We had an emergency committee meeting today, and when I threatened to cancel the whole event, he just laughed. He couldn’t give a stuff about the Ptolemy Finch thing, as long as he can play his bassoon as usual. I’m thinking of getting him certified. That or dipping his reeds in cyanide.’
‘Told you there’d be a death soon,’ muttered Édith, licking cheesecake from her spoon before admiring her reflection in it. ‘Imee really does make the most delicious puds.’
‘The only thing getting killed around here is our family’s reputation,’ Francis snapped, now under direct assault from Poppy.
‘It’s your fault all this happened,’ she boomed. ‘Hector was fine until you lost control of Legs!’
‘I’m getting confused,’ Gayle was whispering to Jax. ‘I thought it was her first husband who lost the use of his legs?’
Leaning sideways to get full sight of her stepson, turban over one ear, Poppy rampaged on at Francis through the alliums: ‘Well you can tell your father he has burned his boats as far as I am concerned!’ she was shouting, hands slamming down on the table as she addressed everyone. ‘You can all tell Hector not to come back – I have a new man in my life!’ She staggered to her feet and raised her glass above the alliums to Byrne, who managed a vague nod in return. ‘Are you all right?’ She squinted. ‘You look very red.’
‘I’m fine,’ he insisted. ‘This evening has been most enlightening.’
Édith lent behind a half-asleep Howard Hawkes to whisper to Legs over his chair back: ‘Someone’s obviously tried to poison Jamie already, and Kizzy is still missing, have you noticed? There’ll be none of us left by petits fours.’ Her eyes glowed luminously.
Legs felt her skin chill. She was rapidly losing enthusiasm for detective work in the wake of tonight’s cross-currents and high drama.
Then Imee stepped between them to discreetly hand a note to Édith.
Legs’ skin felt as though it had iced over as she watched the expression on her fine-boned face change from amusement to horror. ‘What is it?’
Édith folded the note with shaking hands. ‘It’s from Kizzy.’
‘What does she say?’
‘I need to speak with Francis.’ Her voice was tight with emotion as she pushed back her chair and rushed around the table to take Kizzy’s empty space and whisper urgently with her brother.
To Legs’ surprise, he started laughing. Édith looked as though she might hit him and when he demanded to read the note, she ripped it to shreds, voice rising so that Legs distinctly heard the words ‘ruin us!’. Francis stopped laughing and went very pale.
But she had no time to study them further as Howard woke up from his doze with a start and put his arm around her. ‘Would you like to meet Jean Pool, my dear? She loves entertaining pretty girls and sharing make-up tips.’
Rescue came from Poppy, peering myopically over the alliums again as she announced loudly that they would all take coffee in the green drawing room.
While Francis and Édith trailed behind the others deep in a hushed, intense conversation, Legs shook off Howard and tried to hang back to listen in, but Byrne foiled her with a firm hand on her back, propelling her towards the cloisters. ‘Join me for a cigarette.’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Neither do I, but Fink likes a quick drag.’
‘Don’t tell that to Howard Hawkes,’ she muttered as she was marched at speed through the Moroccan corridors, shadowed by a loyal basset.
The storm was drawing ever-closer, the wind rustling madly through the rhododendrons, thunder engaged in cannon battle beyond the Fargoe headland.
Hair lifting off his forehead, Byrne was back to his old self, disapproving and furnace eyed, his cheeks showing just a hint of puffiness, like Russell Crowe between movies. ‘I thought you were going to leave Farcombe?’
‘You told me to leave.’
‘It was good advice.’
Despite the fact she wanted to leave quite badly right now, she resented being bullied. ‘A very good friend of mine says that red cars are unlucky, and my car is red, so I think it best not to travel.’
He gave her a withering smile, but his eyes remained restless. ‘It’s a lot more dangerous sticking around here.’
‘Christ, don’t tell me you think there’ll be a murder too?’
His dark brows shot up. ‘Why would I think that?’
She gave a nervous little hum by way of an answer, already feeling silly. The approaching storm and all this talk of danger, death and disappearance was making her hopelessly on edge, added to which being alone with Byrne was causing her heart to beat so hard that she was convinced it would soon start propelling her around the cloisters like a washing machine with an uneven load. When a cough behind them made them both jump, Legs added a shriek of such heart-lurching overreaction that Fink, who was cocking his leg against the base of a column, let out a gruff bark of alarm and fell over.
Francis stepped through the arches, clipped voice reverting to Ivy League preppy as it always did when he was annoyed. ‘There you are, darling. Your coffee’s going cold.’
Behind him, Édith was looking more ravishingly willowy and predatory than ever as she carried out two crystal brandy balloons and a bottle of Armagnac. ‘Jamie, let’s have a little chat, you and I.’ Her voice was a seductive purr.
Even though she knew that Byrne still just wanted to get rid of her by any means of transport available and that Édith was gay, Legs glanced over her shoulder fearfully as Francis spirited her away, washing machine heart moving from fast spin to door lock.
Still deathly pale, Francis was incredibly keyed-up. She anticipated a lecture from him for sloping off to the terrace with Poppy’s son – and possibly even a telling off for breaking protocol as the cheesecake was served to administer emergency injections at the dinner table – but instead she got an eager, possessive hand on her bottom, circumnavigating her buttocks as they strode side by side. ‘I adore it when you wear no knickers. Come here.’ He tried to pull her behind a big fibreglass blob.
‘No!’ she squeaked. ‘Tell me what’s happened to Kizzy?’
But they were both side-tracked by Gayle Keiller-Myles gliding back from the washroom like a creamy white Andrex puppy, greeting them both with her sunny California tones: ‘Such a great evening, guys. Vincent is loving it. He just adores this old place.’ She fell into step with them as they meandered towards the drawing room. ‘These old statelies used to give me the heebies, but I figure Farcombe is something special. It always feels so safe and cosy, doesn’t it? Like nothing bad has ever happened here.’
‘Au contraire,’ Francis told her, irritated to find his clinch interrupted. ‘According to the history books, there have been at least seven murders at the hall during its four hundred year tenure, and I’m convinced there will be more to come.’
While Gayle giggled, certain that he was joshing, Legs swallowed nervously and glanced over her shoulder again, wishing she’d taken flight while she had the opportunity.
‘What’s that noise?’ she gasped as they passed a small, arched window facing out to the coast, its casement frame rattling. Through it, an unearthly wailing was clearly audible.
‘Sounds like a sea shanty.’ Gayle cocked her head.
‘It’s just the wind.’ Francis leaned out to pull it shut. As he did so, Legs was certain she could make out strains of ‘Running Up that Hill’ which were abruptly muffled as the window slammed closed and the catch clicked into place.
Chapter 17
Poppy’s guests were taking coffee and digestifs in the green drawing room, surrounded by the Protheroes’ personal collection of modern art, as varied and eclectic as its investors, including a large nude of Poppy herself constructed entirely from antique pin-mounted butterflies.
‘Never understand why you keep the best painting in the house upstairs.’ Vin was standing alongside his hostess, peering around her most treasured canvases. ‘Used to hang in Hector’s office at the Fitzroy.’
‘The Freud?’ Francis moved in smoothly.
‘Cracking little picture. Always envied him it. Great little investment too; its value must have rocketed since the artist’s death. Now’s the time to sell.’
‘In that case, we must talk.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Francis,’ snapped Poppy, ‘your father would never part with that painting,’ – dark eyes narrowing, her lips pursed into a smile – ‘although whether I ever let him see it again is another matter.’ She reclaimed Vin with a winning smile. ‘I have several new works for sale if you’re looking to acquire erotica.’ Drawing him aside, she dismissed her stepson with a flick of her hand, seemingly no longer interested in a romantic reuinion between him and Allegra that evening, fake or otherwise.
Legs fell gratefully upon a small and potent cup of coffee, eager to clear her head, but the caffeine made her even more jittery as Francis steered her to a tall window, tightly sealed against the howling wind and sea shanty wailing.
‘I think she’s forgotten that he’s what this evening’s all about,’ he muttered, and Legs jumped as he breathed in her ear, ‘but we haven’t forgotten, have we?’
Then, like a seagull cawing, Poppy confirmed why she no longer cared to bait the trap she had laid to bring her wayward husband home. ‘Jamie, darling! There you are. Isn’t Édith divine? I knew you two would hit it off.’
‘No blows have yet been exchanged,’ Édith said lightly, hooking her arm firmly through Byrne’s and towing him towards the coffee.
He caught Legs’ eye as he passed. She couldn’t read his expression, but sensed it was far from approving. Still cornered with Francis, she found his edgy lasciviousness unnerving.
‘What did Kizzy’s note say?’ she asked him in an undertone.
‘I have no idea,’ he said unhelpfully, fingers rattling on his coffee cup. ‘Édith ripped it up, remember?’
‘She must have told you what was in it?’
‘Nothing you need to worry about. God, but you look sexy in that dress, the way your nipples poke through the knitting.’
‘It’s crochet, actually, and it’s fully lined.’ She crossed her arms in front of her chest like a scuba diver about to tip backwards off a boat.
Kizzy’s parents seemed unconcerned that she was missing; Howard had nodded off on an orange velvet sofa; Yolande was taking a tour around the room with Vin, Gayle and Jax as Poppy showed off her latest acquisitions.
‘This is the Stan McGillivray we hung last autumn.’ She pointed to an amazing painting of a stag fashioned on a huge canvas with just half a dozen strokes of thickest black and sienna paint. Its power and simplicity was glorious, Legs thought. ‘We had to go to his studio on Exmoor and practically beg at the door; he so rarely sells anything these days. We’ve tried to get him to the festival every year since the start, but he’s a total recluse. Isn’t it stunning?’
‘I prefer nudes to wildlife.’ Vin angled his head. ‘But that ain’t bad for venison.’
‘Dad bought it for her birthday,’ Francis whispered to Legs, ‘She hated it at first – she wanted one of McGillivray’s early Prosthetic Limb paintings that became part of Brit Art iconography. But absolutely everyone who sees it loves it, so she’s started to come round – especially if she gets to keep it in a divorce settlement. It must be worth fifty thou. Then again, the Freud’s worth ten times that. Probably why she wants to keep tabs on it.’
‘Do you really think they’ll divorce?’
‘Might come to it.’
‘But you could lose Farcombe.’
‘We’ll find a way round that.’ His voice was caressing. But then his brows suddenly lowered menacingly over those angry true-blue eyes. ‘Let’s just hope that the boy wonder over there can’t get his hands on the place before we figure out how.’
They both looked across to the brightly striped chaise, upon which Byrne was undergoing a rigorous cross-examination from Édith which made no allowances for his recent dice with death. ‘Why not warn Poppy you were coming?’ she demanded.
‘It was a last-minute decision.’ His voice was low and sincere.
Legs thought about his confession the previous evening. I am about to lose my life. If he was terminally ill, it stood to reason that he would want to seek reconciliation with his mother. She couldn’t help wondering what he could be suffering from – some dreadful rare blood disorder, or a tumour like the one that had stolen away Francis’s beautiful mother at such an early age? It seemed desperately unfair.
She tried to edge closer to listen in, but Francis had her trapped up against a huge abstract sculpture, a complicated fabrication of rusted metal twists and spikes which looked like an instrument of torture. ‘Recognise this?’
‘Wasn’t it outside?’
‘That’s right. It’s a Richard Deacon. Dad’s taste again. It used to live out on the terrace, but the sea air was destroying it so he insisted it be re-sited in here last winter. You remember what he used to call it?’
She shook her head.
‘“Legs’ parking place”. It always reminds him of your old death-trap of a car; more rust and holes than motor.’
‘Hondas are very reliable,’ she huffed.
‘You should have traded up years ago.’ When they’d been together he’d tried endlessly to persuade her to upgrade the beloved Honda she’d had since her student days for one with more gadgets and curb appeal. While Francis was unashamed to drive around London in a mud-caked Land Rover, he preferred his girlfriend to be seen in a racy little hatch; he was the same about clothes, happy to look understated in classic old threads, but favouring Legs in a pretty dress to comfortable slouch gear.
‘What does Kizzy drive?’ She was determined to get to the truth, guiltily wondering if she was speeding along the A39 blind with tears right now – or parked up in a nearby gateway waiting to drive over Legs the moment she left the hall.
But Francis remained oblique, ‘People around the bend mostly.’ He was looking at the sculpture, handsome brows furled now. ‘Always makes me think of a piece of torture chamber apparatus.’
Legs shuddered, her detective credentials fading yet further in the wake of mounting cowardice and desire to bolt back to the Book Inn. She could see Byrne looking at her over the back of the striped chaise, longing to escape too as Édith posed awkward questions. She smiled, but his face remained guarded.
