The Mitford Murders

by Jessica Fellowes

  Jarvis said nothing but waited for him to go on.

  ‘There was a cousin, sir. A Mr Stuart Hobkirk. He stood to benefit from her will.’

  ‘So did others, if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Yes, but her last will and testament was made at the very end of 1919, shortly before she died, in his favour.’

  Jarvis raised an eyebrow slightly. ‘How do you know this?’

  Guy hesitated. He couldn’t tell quite the whole truth. ‘I was informed by Miss Shore’s lawyer.’

  ‘Go on.’ The tone was less of an invitation than a challenge.

  ‘It seems that other members of the family were not very happy about his receiving this inheritance. Miss Shore’s brother, for instance. This suggests that it was something of an unexpected aberration in Miss Shore’s affairs.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Jarvis. ‘People are always surprised by the contents of a will – usually when they discover they have been left less than they were hoping for.’

  ‘Yes, quite, sir. However, his alibi is weak, too, sir. He changed his story. At first he said he was working in his studio but when asked to give names of people who were there, he said he was at home alone, painting.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jarvis, closing his fingers around the glass.

  ‘The other thing is that there have been … suggestions that Mr Hobkirk and Miss Shore were romantically involved.’

  ‘Get to the point, Sullivan.’

  ‘I don’t think it was a random robbery and attack on Miss Shore, sir. I think it was someone she knew. If you remember at the inquest, the pathologist said there was no sign of a struggle.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘It occurred to me that if Miss Shore knew her attacker, she wouldn’t have struggled. She might have been talking to them and then been taken completely unawares when they struck her. If they were involved, sir, it might have been a crime of passion.’

  Jarvis was silent for a minute. Guy gave in and pulled at his damp collar with his fingers.

  ‘I see. So because you think that Miss Shore may have known her attacker, and because somebody has suggested that she and Mr Hobkirk were romantically involved, and because he was left a bit of extra money in the will, you think he is chief suspect for a premeditated murder. You don’t appear to have trusted your seniors to have checked out his alibi, either. I suppose you want my say-so to bring him in for further questioning?’

  The familiar shadow of humiliation fell on Guy. ‘Yes, sir.’ A mouse in the corner chewing its fingernails would have made more noise than his reply.

  ‘I don’t even want to discuss the fact that you have been prying in corners without permission.’ Jarvis took a slow swallow of whisky. ‘Get out of here, Sullivan. I don’t have time to waste on nonsense like this. I suggest you stick to your usual duties. I believe you’re down to do an inventory on the lost property at Polegate Junction tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying “Yes, sir”.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean, thank you, sir.’ Guy gave a nod, though the super wasn’t looking at him, and walked away, his hand almost slipping on the handle, but he made it out, pulling the door quietly behind him.

  Guy arrived home that night in the nick of time before his mother started to serve supper. As he walked into the front room, his brothers and father were already at the table, a construction that had survived three generations of cutlery and elbows. The straight lines of polished mahogany had been sanded down by Guy’s grandfather, a carpenter of some fame in his circles and the story of how he had been commissioned to build an armoire for Queen Victoria’s chief lady-in-waiting was well known by his living descendants.

  Mrs Sullivan had laid out all six places in the usual way: six white plates, six polished forks, six bone-handled knives, six thick china mugs. Guy could see his mother’s back in the kitchen, bent as she sliced the bread. On the hob the dripping was spitting despite the gas having been turned off a minute before. Her whole body was focused on the task, feet set apart on the floor, her hand on the knife as it sawed slowly down the loaf, each slice of even thickness, as straight down the sides as the table legs. Her sons knew her ears would have been listening intently for the muffled push of the front door, hoping to hear it before the clock struck on the hour. Late arrivals got no supper.

  Guy hurried to his chair, at the corner by his mother’s, his back to the window, where a tiny crack that nobody had ever been able to close blew a cool breeze across his shoulders.

  Mrs Sullivan, still in the kitchen, barely raised her head, said nothing, carved the sixth slice and then brought the bread out to the table. A large dish of hot fried potatoes was already there. The brothers were noisy, not missing an opportunity, even one as regular as this, to josh their sibling. There was a clamour as each vied to get his tease in louder than the others.

  ‘What happened tonight, eh? Was the signal stuck on a red light?’

  ‘The army’d have got you in shape, boy!’

  ‘You can’t be late in the army; you’d be shot for it!’

  Guy said nothing. He knew there was no defence he could give that anyone would listen to. He waved them off with a shake of his head and a wry smile, to show he didn’t care.

  ‘What’s for supper, Mother?’ he asked.

  ‘Potatoes, as you can see. Bread and dripping, no sugar tonight,’ she said, pulling her chair in, and her tone was stern but her face was open and there was just the faintest trace of a smile.

  Mr Sullivan called everyone to order with a wave of his hand and they bent their heads for grace. ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’

  Six heads sprang up at once, four pairs of hands reached out and greedily grabbed their bread and potatoes in perfectly synchronised motion before Mother and Father took theirs, then the jug of hot dripping was passed around. Mrs Sullivan splashed milk in each mug, then poured in the tea.

  There was silence for a while as everyone ate and drank, before the spell was broken by Walter, the oldest and biggest brother. Walter and Ernest were Irish twins, joked Father, born ten months apart, and it looked as if Walter had taken all of Mother’s strength to build him up and left none for Ernest. The younger ‘twin’ had been a small baby, dangerously so, and stayed the skinny one ever since. The brothers worked together on a building site on the Vauxhall Road, Ernest able to haul a hod of bricks as easily as Walter, much to their foreman’s surprise.

  ‘What was it this time, Guy? Sheep on the line?’ Walter snickered into his tea.

  ‘No sheep at Victoria station,’ said Ernest, pretending to correct Walter. ‘But I heard there was a tomcat prowling on the tracks. Gave the police paws for thought.’

  Walter slapped his brother on the back and bared his teeth in a single, silent Ha.

  ‘That’s enough, now,’ said Mrs Sullivan.

  ‘S’all right, Mother,’ said Guy, pushing his glasses up. ‘The super kept me back. Wanted a word.’ He sat up a little straighter, to try to fool them into thinking it had been a good word, but to no effect. The brothers fell about laughing like cartoons, though their parents kept straight faces, eyeing each other across the spoils of supper.

  ‘You going to be in charge of the hanging baskets? Make sure no one runs off with the petunias on platform seven?’ This last came from Bertie, the youngest brother, repositioned since Tom was killed.

  Guy pinched a corner of bread and wiped it around the plate, pushing the last of his dripping in ever-decreasing circles. The jug had worked its way clockwise around the table and, with his mother after him, he never liked to take too much. As he circled the bread and sweet fat, the sounds of his family faded out. If he looked at his plate for long enough, he’d cease to hear them altogether.

  He knew he was right about Stuart Hobkirk. He’d show them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Lou-Lou! Where are you? I need you now!’

  Louisa heard Nancy shoutin
g on every step as she ran up the stairs from dining room to nursery, until she found Louisa in the linen cupboard, slowly folding pillowcases, not wishing to be discovered.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’

  Louisa snapped out of her reverie. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

  Nancy stood before her, her green eyes like torch lamps. ‘It’s today. He comes today. I thought it was tomorrow but it’s not, it’s today. Muv just reminded Farve and I’m not at all ready. I wanted to wear my blue dress and I don’t think it’s been pressed …’

  The Mitford clan had returned to Asthall Manor from London and Louisa hadn’t realised she would be so grateful to see the sight of the house. It may have been her place of work but it was beginning to feel like home, too. Reassured that her mother was surviving, as much as she ever had, at any rate, and knowing that Stephen could not get to her here added to her calm – a novel and enjoyable sensation.

  June in the Cotswolds continued to astonish her with its unfolding beauty. After the exploding colours and scents of May, intoxicating with its blossom and the constant singing of birds, June’s long, still days, with bees diving into the bowed heads of the heavy roses, made her feel as if she could lie down in the grass and disappear like Alice into Wonderland.

  On this day, Lady Redesdale, in her capacity as founder and chair of the Asthall & Swinbrook WI, was hosting one of her frequent committee lunches, an occurrence that merited no comment from any but Mrs Stobie, who complained loudly that they might all talk of charitable work but it was her, putting in all the extra hours God sent to make a trifle, who was in need of charity.

  ‘Louisa!’ Nancy shook out her skirts pettishly.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Louisa, putting down the pillowcases. ‘What time is he coming?’

  ‘Hooper’s picking him up from the station at twelve. Do you think I should go to meet him too? Or do you think I should wait until he’s here? It’s just, I don’t want Farve getting in the way too much. I mean, it is me he wants to see.’

  ‘We don’t know that for certain.’

  ‘But he wrote to Farve after the ball. I don’t see what other reason he could be coming here for.’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ said Louisa. ‘I don’t think you should go to the station to collect him, no.’

  ‘He might think me unfriendly for not meeting him,’ replied Nancy. Louisa could almost see the heat rising in her like Mrs Stobie’s dough.

  ‘His Lordship will not allow it,’ said Louisa with conviction. She had learned the ways of her master in these last few months.

  ‘No,’ Nancy muttered. ‘I don’t suppose he will. Farve probably won’t even let me sit next to him at luncheon. If only I could tell him that we met at the ball, then he would know—’

  Louisa interrupted. ‘You mustn’t tell His Lordship about the ball. That would be the very worst idea. The only thing we have to make sure of is that Mr Lucknor doesn’t mention the ball and meeting you there. Perhaps you could be at the front door as he arrives – you could ask him for his discretion, then?’

  ‘But Muv will be there, and probably all the others, the brutes,’ said Nancy, crestfallen.

  ‘Right. In that case, I will ask to go to the station with Hooper. I’ll say I need to stop at the village for something, some castor oil or something,’ said Louisa. ‘And I’ll get the blue dress; I can press it for you now.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Nancy. ‘I don’t know what I would do without you, darling thing.’

  When Louisa and Hooper arrived at the station just before noon, Hooper silently chewing tobacco as he pulled on the reins of the trap, she saw the puff of smoke in the distance that heralded the arrival of the train and its eagerly awaited passenger, Roland Lucknor.

  Louisa walked on to the station platform as the train arrived, the doors opening before it had come to a stop. She saw the various passengers alight, and remembered herself arriving at the station only five months before, bedraggled and frightened, yet hopeful. When she spotted Roland, she thought she saw something of those things in him, too. He was a handsome man with broad shoulders, but though his brown shoes gleamed with polish, his suit looked a size too large for his sinewy frame.

  She waved and he came over. ‘Hello, Mr Lucknor,’ she said. ‘I came to meet you as I had an errand to run in the village. It’s such a beautiful day, His Lordship sent the horse and trap to take you back to the house. I’m afraid with petrol rationing after the war, they prefer not to use the car too often. Still, it shan’t take too long..’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Roland. ‘It was kind of them to send anyone to meet me at all.’

  Louisa smiled at him and turned, indicating he should follow her. On the trap, Louisa sat on the back bench, looking out to the road behind them, leaving Roland to sit beside Hooper, who merely grunted to acknowledge his new passenger. With Hooper there, the easy informality they had had on that long walk through London at night had vanished.

  Hooper yanked at the reins and they set off at a smart trot through Shipton-under-Wychwood, the creamy Cotswold stone of the houses appearing at their most handsome in the June sunshine. Gardeners could be seen on the other side of low walls, tending the finishing touches to the displays that were the culmination of their year-round labours; young girls in white embroidered frocks walked around the village hand in hand, admiring each other; and mothers took a rest from cooking their Sunday lunch, red-faced in their floury aprons as they stood in the cool of their doorways and waved to neighbours.

  When they reached the wider road that would take them to Asthall Manor, with Queen Anne’s lace and its bursts of white flowers, thickly clustered along the sides, no sound but the clip-clopping of the horse’s hooves, Louisa turned around and tapped Roland on the shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Lucknor, there’s something I need to tell you.’

  Alert, he looked at Louisa with concern. His eyes were blacker than ever in the sunshine. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  Leaning over to check that Hooper wasn’t listening in, Louisa whispered, ‘Well, it’s just that when you met Miss Mitford and me …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We weren’t supposed to be at that ball. Lord and Lady Redesdale don’t know.’

  ‘I see,’ said Roland with a disapproving look, but he wasn’t old enough to carry it off. She wasn’t afraid of him.

  ‘So perhaps when you see Miss Mitford today, you could …’ She looked over at Hooper again, but he was chewing slowly, his eyes on the horse. ‘Perhaps you could pretend it was the first time you’d met. The point is, if you say you met Miss Mitford there, she’ll be in the most awful trouble and I will probably lose my job. Please, sir. I know it’s an imposition.’

  Roland looked at Louisa levelly. Then all at once he smiled and said, ‘Of course. You don’t need to worry about a thing.’ Then he turned around to face forwards and they didn’t speak again for the rest of the journey.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  As the trap came around the immense oak tree on the drive, Louisa spotted Nancy walking along the garden path, clearly doing her best to look nonchalant, bending down to smell the recently bloomed roses, not something Louisa could remember ever having seen her do before. She couldn’t help but be amused by the signs of infatuation showing in Nancy: hair that had been brushed and re-brushed, coaxed into shape against its will, and a flush of red between her collarbones.

  Roland did not appear to see her, looking instead at Lord Redesdale as he stood at the front door, a gun hooked over his arm, calling out to the new arrival: ‘Hello, there! Sorry about the gun. Damn rabbits, you know. How was your train journey? Good, good.’ This last said without waiting for any reply.

  Pamela was standing by her father, watching the guest arrive. She looked placid and unkempt as she usually did, always set slightly apart from her sisters, yet not at all standoffish. If it wasn’t for Nancy, Pamela would easily have been Louisa’s favourite. She stopped that thought in its tracks –
Nanny had told her often that one had no favourites when it came to the children.

  Louisa saw Lord Redesdale motion to Nancy, who had tried to pick a pink tea rose, only for the petals to scatter at her feet and leave her with a stem she couldn’t twist off without yanking. It wasn’t quite the picture of summer elegance she must have been going for.

  ‘That’s my eldest daughter, Nancy,’ he said, offhand. Nancy tried to turn and wave hello but she was mid-yank and didn’t manage it. Lord Redesdale observed her briefly before harrumphing, ‘Come in, come in. We’ve got just enough time for a snifter before luncheon. Twelve minutes. Bloody Mary? Good, good.’

  Nancy leapt to Louisa, clutching at her arms. ‘Did you say anything to him? He didn’t even look at me.’

  ‘Yes, I don’t think he’ll give us away. I’ve got to get back to the nursery. Try and stay calm,’ said Louisa, rattled by Nancy’s reaction. It was most unlike her.

  ‘I will,’ said Nancy, ‘it’s just that … Did you see how handsome he is? He looks like a French pianist. All sort of sad eyes and long, delicate fingers.’

  Louisa laughed, then forced a serious expression on her face. ‘I think Nanny would say you’ve been reading too many novels.’ To which Nancy gave a big sigh. ‘You really must calm down. If they find out about the ball …’

  ‘They won’t, don’t worry. I’d better go in. I’ll come and find you after luncheon, tell you how it went,’ said Nancy as she started to run into the house, before remembering herself and braking suddenly on her heels, smoothing down her skirt and hair as her mother did, then walking slowly, chin up, to the drawing room.

  Louisa went into the house through the kitchen door at the back to find Mrs Stobie in a flustered state. ‘That wretched Ada is in bed snivelling with a cold,’ she said. ‘Mrs Windsor has washed her hands of her, which is all very well for Mrs High and Mighty, but I’ve got soup for the first course, which is going to send Her Ladyship into a spin as it is …’