The Haunted Season

by G. M. Malliet

  “I wouldn’t think anyone capable of it,” Max pointed out, “but someone did it. And it required a certain amount of knowledge of the lord’s habits.” Indeed, Max had reached the conclusion some time ago that whoever had done this had had ample time to observe, to plot, and to plan. The trap was so nicely calibrated and measured.

  “I know. And Peregrine did quarrel with his father—but that was the usual sort of father and son thing. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Any idea what the quarrel was about?” Max asked him, all ears but feigning nonchalance.

  “No, Vicar, I’ve really no idea. I heard only the end of the quarrel, anyway.”

  “What was said?”

  “Lord Baaden-Boomethistle was quite angry—what about, I don’t know. He said, ‘You’re no son of mine. You’re unnatural, that’s what you are. No son of mine could do what you did.’ And Peregrine said something like ‘I wish that were true! I wish anyone but you were my father! Then I might be happy.’ Then he sort of flounced away, slamming the door. Young Peregrine does tend to flounce and pout when he doesn’t get his way, I’m afraid. The entire family just missed a career in the theater.”

  Max said, “We have to return to the fact, painful as it may be, that Peregrine knew his father’s habits well. He had to have done.”

  “That’s true of almost anyone who has spent any time with the family,” said the butler loyally. “Any member of staff—myself included. Or a weekend guest, perhaps.”

  Max nodded, saying, “All right. We also have to consider that this murder was committed by someone with a knowledge of the sort of horse Foto Finish is, I should think.”

  “Smart, you mean. Responsive and easy to train, so I heard Lady Baaden-Boomethistle say once. Unspookable. Biddable. Unlike the young lord, of whom most of the staff have despaired at one point or another.”

  “Funny you should say that,” said Max softly, remembering. “That Foto Finish is so biddable.” It had been Awena who had reminded him of the story that had been nibbling at the edges of his mind. The story of Brat Farrar, a story with a murderous horse wanting to rid itself of its passenger.

  They had been at breakfast, reading the news coverage, when Awena said, “Somehow the horrible method of this murder has me thinking of that old book by Josephine Tey. Brat Farrar?”

  Max looked at her over the top of his section of the newspaper. “Brat Farrar,” he confirmed. “I’ve read it, but it’s been years ago now. She’s one of my favorite mystery authors.”

  “It’s one of her best stories, although it’s hard to beat Daughter of Time. It’s probably been on my mind just because of the theme of horses and wealthy families. In the story, someone tries to kill Brat, using a rogue horse named Timber.”

  “It’s something to do with an inheritance, right?”

  Awena nodded, stirring a teaspoon of chia seeds into her cereal. Owen nestled against her shoulder. “Yes. Brat is a foundling who gets talked into impersonating an heir, partly so he can inherit a stud farm. He loves horses, you see.”

  “Just as Lady Baaden-Boomethistle is said to love horses.”

  “Right. Horse-mad she is, or so I’ve heard. Anyway, in Tey’s story, there is a strong family resemblance and Brat takes advantage of it to pretend that he is the twin of a man who disappeared. The missing man is thought to have committed suicide. So Brat’s a criminal, you see, although horses and people seem to like him. But he uncovers a far worse crime during his impersonation.”

  Max nodded. “It’s a good story. I remember I read it all in one go on a long train ride.”

  “And it’s a real psychological puzzle. The reader is never quite sure which criminal to follow … if you follow. And you join with the family in suspecting Brat, then accepting him. Tey just pulls you along where she wants you to go.”

  Max, sitting now with the butler, thought that the horse in this case, unlike Timber, was not known for its bad temper. Cotton had said this at some point and the butler had just confirmed it. It was a beautiful and high-spirited animal, and it had raced for home the moment it was free of its rider, as horses are wont to do. It was hard to see further parallels in Brat Farrar to the current real crime.

  Max returned his full attention to Hargreaves, who was saying, “She’d be nearly forty now.”

  “I’m sorry, who is this?”

  “The nanny. The woman hired to take care of Peregrine when he was a baby. I told you most of the staff despaired of him at one point or other, but it was the nanny spotted trouble early on.”

  “Do you happen to know where she is now?” He had so little real insight into Peregrine or any other member of the family. But servants saw what was hidden from the world. It might not pay off, but he wanted to get a better sense of the family and its history. And certainly a nanny would know the innate character of her charges better than most.

  Hargreaves shook his head. “It was before my time she left, of course. I’ve only seen photos. Lovely girl she was. Scandinavian in her background, one side or the other, by the look of her. Pale hair, blue eyes. But I don’t think she was from there. Or from here.”

  Quelling Max’s disappointment, the butler added, “I do know she stayed in the UK and didn’t return home, as so many do. I overheard Rosamund say she got married to an Englishman.”

  It might mean her name had changed, but surely there would be enough to go on in the immigration records. And Cotton’s people could find out more from Rosamund, perhaps.

  “I’ll just have a look-see in the household accounts for that time frame, shall I?” Hargreaves asked, again anticipating Max’s need, like the good servant he was. “Her name as it was—her maiden name—is sure to appear. Your DCI can take it from there to find out what her name might be now, and where she’s living.”

  Chapter 9

  SECOND NANNY

  Awena’s reminder of the Josephine Tey book had sent Max to his study shelves that evening to retrieve his copy of Brat Farrar, but he’d had time to skim only the first chapter. Still, with its theme of imposters, the book made him think it wouldn’t hurt to look into the history of those who inhabited Totleigh Hall. Cotton and his people would tick the usual procedural boxes, but Max felt he needed a broader understanding.

  The butler had come through with a maiden name and an address where the nanny’s last check had been sent. Cotton’s team had quickly been able to locate her.

  Fortunately, she lived not far away. It was less than an hour’s drive to Fugglestone Parva, a hamlet at no great distance from Glastonbury. She no longer was raising other people’s children but had two of her own. They were at school until four, she informed Max once he had, with an assist from Cotton’s Sergeant Essex, established his bona fides.

  The former nanny turned out to be Afrikaner by way of the Netherlands, her family part of the great wave of immigrants into and out of South Africa. Her name, rather improbably, was Candice Thor St. Gabriel. Over scones and coffee, she told Max her mother had been Scandinavian, confirming the butler’s memory of her appearance.

  And if Max had been Lady Baaden-Boomethistle at the time Candice was at Totleigh Hall, she might never have been offered the job. He knew it was sexist, he knew it was many small-minded things, but Candice fit every stereotype of the young woman destined to stir storms of jealousy and family discord, often in all innocence.

  She still looked impossibly young to have been the nanny at the hall two decades before, and surely could not have been much more than a child herself at the time. Supposing she was eighteen when she took the job, she was thirty-eight or so now, but looked a decade younger. She had the dense, creamy skin of many Scandinavians, and the pale, farseeing eyes that gave the nation its reputation as home to seers and sages. The dark-haired Awena, for that matter—dark-haired apart from a streak of white at the temple—had the same sort of eyes, but this woman was a white-chocolate blonde, a walking embodiment of the cliché of the Nordic temptress. She was youthfully dressed in a tank top and jean
s deliberately torn at one knee. She wore cowboy boots and colorful dangly earrings; there was an air of last-minute chance to her ensemble that seemed to Max both authentic and rather endearing. The house showed every sign of having recently been vacated by youthful brigands with a fondness for colorful plastic toys and chaos.

  Her English was lightly accented with what sounded German to the ear but was, Max knew, a remaining trace of her native Afrikaans. The mid-nineties had seen a significant emigration out of Africa to the UK, most of it in response to a rising crime rate. She was, as she told Max, a descendant of missionaries to South Africa, which possibly explained her willingness to talk with him. Different religion, same hymnal, he thought.

  She further said it was a point of honor with her that she had not been an au pair, and she corrected Max when he slipped and used the term. Perhaps she was herself all too aware of the stereotypes.

  “I never did domestic work. I looked after the children and that is all I did.” There seemed to be another unspoken emphasis behind the words. Max waited.

  “It’s an enormous responsibility,” she said.

  “Yes, I know that well. My wife and I have just had our first child. You never quite sleep from that day forward, do you? And you never feel even the most trusted and qualified person can do the job as well as you can.”

  Mrs. Hooser had offered to watch the baby when he arrived. Max, who could think of few people less qualified to watch a baby, since her own children’s having survived infanthood seemed like an instance of God’s amazing grace, had smiled wanly at her well-intended kindness. Mrs. Hooser was blissfully unaware that in any practical sense of the term, she was an appalling mother.

  “Thank you all the same, Mrs. Hooser, but we’ll be hiring a childminder for the occasions when Awena and I aren’t around.” He had thought of the solution on the spot but knew something of the sort would have to be arranged.

  “I’ve heard all the jokes about foreign au pairs,” Candice told him now. “Men can be so silly. It is unfortunate, because even the most repulsive of employers come to think they are expected to make a pass. That we all must live our lives as part of some grand farce in a television sitcom.”

  “Ah.”

  “So looking after the children, that is all I did,” she repeated. “If you have heard rumors to the contrary, you are wrong. They are wrong.”

  Max considered pretending he didn’t know what she meant, but just as quickly, he dropped the pretense.

  “Lord Baaden-Boomethistle is known to have had a roving eye,” he said. “In his youth.”

  “Yes. And roving hands. I quickly put a stop to all that. I didn’t need the job. They needed me. I was a highly trained nanny with outstanding references. And Peregrine was a handful.”

  “Put a stop to it, how?”

  “I told his wife.”

  Max had to admire the girl’s spunk. How many in her place, with a possibly precarious immigration status, would have been afraid to make waves?

  “And she kept you on? Even though she must have seen you as a threat?”

  “First of all, every woman with a pulse was a threat to that marriage. Second of all, she didn’t care anymore what he got up to—you could tell. I was safe as houses so far as she was concerned—so far as my working for her was concerned.”

  “And he?”

  “Meek as a lamb once he realized I wasn’t having any.”

  Max would never have given the lord high marks for likability. Still, he’d been murdered in such a spectacular way: It had to suggest a highly personal motive. And sadly, that suggested involvement by his family. Or was it possible he’d had a mistress—someone carrying a grudge because he wouldn’t leave his present wife for her? Not out of the question, Max supposed.

  “Besides, she was a lady,” Candice was saying. “I mean, not just the title. She was a real class act. Nice. I liked her. The chances I would hurt her like that, with him? Less than zero.”

  “You haven’t met the current Lady Baaden-Boomethistle, have you?”

  She surprised him with her reply.

  “No, but I’ve heard an earful. From the daughter. From Rosamund.”

  Really. “And how is that?”

  “Rosamund can’t stand her.”

  “Not unusual, is it, in a stepmother and stepdaughter relationship?”

  Candice shrugged. She had no opinions, apparently, on whether it was unusual or not. But she added, “I think Rosamund is a little highly strung: Her dislike seems excessive to me. She feels her father married too soon after her mother’s death.”

  “You have met Rosamund since you left Totleigh Hall?”

  “Yes, I met up with her and her brother in London on a few occasions. The women of the family belong to some women’s club there—she took me to tea once. It was so grand, a nice treat for me, you know? We took a liking to each other from the first. She was a serious little girl. Highly intelligent. I found her charming.”

  Max considered: Rosamund would not be the first child who felt displaced when parents died or moved on following a divorce. The loss, emotional and financial, could have an impact that lasted decades.

  “Of course I remember the family well,” Candice was saying. “I was with them until the children left for their schooling. I heard from Peregrine for a while. It was one of his school assignments to compose letters, and I would get these awful stilted things, which I treasure to this day. I don’t think…”

  “Think what?”

  “Well, I’m guessing now, but I don’t think he had anyone else to write to. Family, I mean. It was the same story with the girl, with Rosamund. Lonely children they were—they really only had each other. And unfortunately, they did not get along that well together. Even from when they were tiny. Even though he was said to be sickly at first—he outgrew that. But she never seemed to make allowances for him.”

  “And he?”

  “Oh, the jealousy and spite cut both ways, to be sure. He was always on her about her weight.”

  “You say he was sickly as a child? He shows no signs of it now.”

  Candice nodded, telling him that Peregrine had been kept in hospital for a few months with some sort of medical complication. She had been hired shortly afterward to care for him.

  “Wouldn’t it be more usual for a nanny to be hired ahead of time? So the parents would be ready and trained in what to expect, and the nanny get to know the family?”

  “Not really,” she replied. “Maybe slightly more usual.” She wiggled her hand in an equivocating fashion. “Come to remember, they said something about having hired someone before me who did not work out—that I was a replacement. They said she was a religious nutter—that’s right. That was it. Another scone, Father Max? I must say I’ve grown to love the scone. At home, my mother made stroopwafel, but I can’t duplicate them here—every experiment has failed. The ingredients just aren’t the same here, or the oven. Or maybe it’s me.…”

  “Do you recall her name, the nanny who came before you?”

  She started to shake her head sadly, no, she did not recall, and then she stopped. “I was friends with someone in Nether Monkslip who ran a bakery there. She would know. She took me under her wing, made things like stroopwafel for me when she had time, because she knew I was homesick. Such a kind woman. Her son was useless, as I recall. He sponged—is that the word, sponged?—off of her all the time. Before I left, I asked her to keep in touch. She didn’t, not really, but I understood why. I never saw anyone who worked so hard.”

  She had to be talking about Elka Garth of the Cavalier. He supplied the name and she nodded enthusiastically.

  “I really should pay her a visit. See how she’s doing. Take the children to meet her…”

  “She’d like that. And so, they stayed in touch, the children of Totleigh Hall?”

  To his unspoken doubt, she said, “When I left, I left behind for them many children’s books. But only Rosamund read them, she told me. She was always going to be such a g
reat reader, you could tell. I put my name in the books—I had used them myself, to help with my English, you understand—and I told her to keep in touch, that if she forgot me, she could always look at my name and remember. I told her I was a bit alone here in England myself—which was certainly true, at least before I met my husband.

  “I wasn’t surprised when she wrote me. We met several times over the years when we were in London shopping or going to the theater. She belonged to her mother’s club there, as I mentioned … some women’s thing. We would meet up there.

  “She is a bit of a lost soul, that one. More coffee, Vicar?”

  Chapter 10

  FIRST NANNY

  It was a simple matter of ringing Elka Garth to track down the first nanny in the Totleigh Hall household. He could hear the hubbub of the shop in the background; Elka had a thriving business catering to the neo-hippy, gluten-free, granola-munching clientele of Nether Monkslip, but she did a fair side business in decadent offerings, like delicate pastries dripping with chocolate and caramel.

  The gurgle of conversation was suddenly shot through with what he recognized as Suzanna’s raucous laughter: “Chanel, you are the limit!”

  To which came the reply, “I’m serious! I am so glad I wasn’t here. What can it be like to be a suspect in a murder?”

  “It’s loads of fun, actually. I’ve been a suspect on many occasions. Stick around the village long enough. You’ll get used to it.”

  Max also heard what sounded like Eugenia in the middle of another conversation, baying, “I told you. Just like Hester Prynne.”

  Someone had dared mention Hester Prynne when Awena’s pregnancy first became evident. That person had quickly been rounded on and shushed. That person had probably been Suzanna—it was a typical Suzanna sort of joke. But apparently the thought had become embedded in Eugenia’s brain. Such a tiresome woman. Max thought he might have to deal with it one day, the apparent jealousy, although ignoring her for now seemed the better course. Maybe it was the coward’s course, but it all seemed too petty for a flat-out confrontation.