The Winter Mystery

by Faith Martin

  Relieved to be out of the cold, and so glad to be held in human arms again, Pooch reached up and began to lick his master’s face, tasting strange, salty water. He wondered if his other master would give him a biscuit when he got home. Pooch felt as if he deserved one.

  He didn’t understand yet that his older master would never give him a biscuit again.

  * * *

  At the farm, Jenny put the goose in to cook and looked up as the door from the hallway opened. The first one down this Christmas morning was not Stan, as she’d expected, but Bill. He walked in, looking like a man who’d spent the night tossing and turning. His hair was rumpled, his skin tight, and his blue eyes blazed in dry, red-rimmed anger. But it was a vague, undirected anger, and all the more debilitating for it.

  ‘Do you want bacon and eggs?’ she asked him softly, able only to offer him food, when what he so obviously needed was something far more precious. She was not surprised when he shook his head. He stood staring around him, looking lost. He was a handsome man, Jenny thought, with a slight awakening of interest, but she knew he was a way into his thirties. Why wasn’t he married?

  ‘I’ll get you some tea,’ she said. ‘Nobody else is down yet, but I thought I heard the door go just before I got up.’ She kept her voice deliberately casual, deliberately normal.

  ‘That was Bert,’ Bill said. ‘I saw him leave about six.’ It was still dark at six, Jenny thought, frowning. What could you do on a farm in pitch darkness?

  She poured the tea, handed him a mug, heard the creaking movements of someone walking about overhead and put the bacon on to fry.

  It was Inspector Moulton who put in an appearance a few moments later, his nose twitching. Still no Stan, she thought, and repressed an uneasy shiver. He’d be down in a minute. There really was no need for her to worry about a second murder, she told herself firmly. She was just being jumpy, that was all.

  ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do without Sid to keep our spirits going,’ Bill said at last, finally confronting his demons and ignoring the policeman altogether. But that probably had more to do with exhaustion, the cook thought charitably, than bad manners.

  Moulton glanced at Bill thoughtfully. The younger son — so he wouldn’t be inheriting the farm. Unmarried too, as he recalled.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Kelton, why do you stay on here, if you dislike it so much?’

  Jenny had filled him in on the family’s complex and, in her opinion, downright unhealthy relationships last night, and he was frankly curious about Bill Kelton. Delia, as a young girl, might have no choice but to stay there; she had no money, and Moulton was of the firm opinion that, even in this day and age, it was better for daughters to stay in the protection of a family unit until they got married.

  And Bert Kelton would one day inherit the farm, as would his son Jeremy after him, so he didn’t question their allegiance to it. But Bill Kelton would not inherit. Bill Kelton worked long hours, for probably small rewards. He was also a bachelor, and yet he was a handsome enough man. Oh yes, Moulton wondered very much about Bill Kelton.

  Bill looked across at him now, and gave a weary, pitying smile at how little strangers could understand. ‘I’m a Kelton,’ he said, as if that explained everything. ‘I can’t get away from here any more than Bert can. Or Delia.’ He reached for his mug of tea as though it was a hefty shot of whiskey, and gulped it down. Indeed, he almost sounded like a drunken man, and yet he was terrifyingly sober. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said softly, and began to laugh.

  Jenny stiffened. Enough of that! Hysteria on Christmas morning was more than she had bargained for. ‘Mr Kelton,’ she began, her voice hard and bracing. ‘I think—’

  ‘I don’t pay you to think, Miss Starling,’ Stan Kelton’s voice boomed across the room, making Moulton jump and spill his tea. ‘I pay you to cook.’ He glanced at the stove and the crisply frying bacon. He nodded, walked to the table, poured a mug of tea and sat at the head, ignoring his son, who stared blankly at the wall.

  Moulton glanced at Jenny and nodded thoughtfully. He’d thought she’d been exaggerating the family tensions when she’d talked to him last night. Now, though, he could see for himself what she meant. The very air around them seemed to be bubbling. The whole place had the feel of a pressure cooker, about to explode at any moment. And yet, surely, Moulton thought with a frown, it had already done so? Sidney Kelton had been murdered, after all.

  Yet Stan Kelton was a presence that nobody could ignore. Even now Sid was fading, as if he’d never been, like an old sepia photograph that had been left out too long in the sunlight. Even Moulton felt the blast of this man’s powerful personality and had to stiffen his backbone against it. ‘Mr Kelton,’ he said firmly, ‘I wondered if we might go over some old family history,’ he asked, meeting Stan’s eyes with his usual, deceivingly level look. ‘I need to know as much about Sidney as I can learn.’

  Stan scowled and shrugged. ‘Don’t see what good that’ll do,’ he grunted, but lumbered to his feet. ‘I’ll go look out all the family papers and the album. We can go over them after breakfast.’

  * * *

  Delia didn’t come down for breakfast, and Jeremy found the kitchen deserted when he walked in, half an hour later. There were dirty plates in the sink, so he knew that the others had been and gone, but he couldn’t bring himself to care where everyone was. He felt as if he were the only one left on the face of the planet. Never had he felt so lonely. Or so guilty.

  If only he hadn’t quarrelled with his uncle. If only he’d listened more carefully to what he’d been trying to tell him.

  He helped himself to some of the bacon in the frying pan, put it between two slices of freshly baked bread, added a dollop of brown sauce, then sat at the empty table, unable to eat it.

  Instead, he found himself staring at the chair where his Uncle Sid had been sitting yesterday, a knife buried in his chest, his eyes wide open.

  Looking at him accusingly . . .

  * * *

  Bill pulled his scarf tighter around his chin as he looked out across the village. He had left the others in the living room to discuss the precious Kelton family history, mumbling some excuse about going out to find Bert. No one had objected to him leaving, although that strangely sexy-looking cook had given him a searching look.

  The truth was, Bill simply could not bear to be in his father’s company a moment longer than necessary. For as long as he could remember, poor Bert had been the slow one, the clumsy one, the useless one, and he, Bill, had been the brains and the firm favourite. Then, suddenly, over the last month or so, his father’s ire had turned for some reason against him, until he was convinced that his father actively hated him.

  Not that that wasn’t fine with Bill. In fact, in many ways it was something of a relief, for Bill could not remember a time when he had ever loved his father, and now he no longer had to feel guilty about it.

  As he stood out in the cold, he wondered where Bert was. He wondered how Delia was. He wondered if Jeremy would be the first Kelton to escape Stan Kelton and the curse of Kelton Farm.

  He didn’t wonder about Sid. He didn’t even want to think about Sid.

  * * *

  In the living room, Jenny, Moulton and Stan sat around the fire, the Kelton papers spread out on the table.

  ‘So, where do I start?’ Stan said, then carried on before Moulton could reply. ‘Well, Sid was born in May 1940, and I was born a year later.’ He sorted through the album and picked out their baby pictures. Even as chubby infants, Stan had looked the stronger, the bigger, the one who frowned, while Sid was the baby who chuckled. ‘When I was twenty-two I married Eloise, when she was just sixteen,’ Stan continued, and once more hunted through the album until he came to the only coloured photograph in it.

  It was an expensive studio shot of a beautiful young woman with long, fair wavy hair and the deepest velvet brown eyes Jenny had ever seen. ‘In 1964, we had Bert.’

  ‘You were living here then?’ Moulton put in, not
bothering to point out that Stan Kelton was dwelling on his life, not on that of his brother’s.

  Stan nodded, looking surprised. ‘Of course. Where else?’

  Moulton nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, Sid had a really bad bout of illness many years ago. Asthma, pleurisy, pneumonia. You name it. When he came out of hospital . . . well.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘He was just buggered.’ Stan paused as if about to say something else, then merely sighed. ‘In ’74, Bill was born, then Delia, a long while after that. Eloise died giving birth to our daughter,’ he said bluntly. ‘Probably had her too late in life.’

  He didn’t sound particularly regretful, angry, or even much interested. Not now, anyway.

  Jenny’s eye fell to the portrait of the beautiful Eloise and wondered. Had Stan Kelton ever loved his wife? She had certainly been lovely enough. But, somehow, she couldn’t quite accept that looks alone had been reason enough for Stan to marry her. Stan, who according to his own daughter, always got what he wanted.

  ‘Eloise,’ Jenny said carefully. ‘Was she a . . . did she come from a wealthy family?’ she asked, as delicately as she could.

  Stan looked at her, and then grunted a brief, hard laugh. ‘Not particularly, no. She lived in the village. Her father owned a butcher’s shop.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jenny said, genuinely surprised. Perhaps, after all, Stan Kelton had married for love. But she still somehow doubted it. Oh yes, she doubted it very much.

  ‘And what happened to Sid, all this time,’ Moulton asked, curious in spite of himself.

  Stan shrugged. ‘Sid came to look upon my family as his own. He treated them like his own kids.’

  ‘He never, er,’ Moulton took a breath, ‘found any companionship from a lady himself?’

  Stan grunted. ‘Like I said, Sid came home from hospital a different man. He was always sickly. Couldn’t walk far without wheezing. Couldn’t do any of the heavy work. Didn’t seem to bother the ladies much, either. And over the years . . .’ Stan shrugged.

  Yes, Jenny thought grimly. Over the years, you just took over. And Sid let you. But why? Granted, Sid wasn’t as naturally aggressive as his brother, but he had been a younger man then. Still, losing his health could have been traumatic for him. Yes, that could affect a man very badly, especially a previously fit one; a man who relied on physical strength and stamina to do his job and run the family farm. And yet . . . Jenny sighed, sure that there was more to all of this than Stan would have them believe. It just didn’t make sense. Something was missing. She couldn’t help feeling that a vital part of the jigsaw was being kept back from them.

  Moulton thanked Stan stiffly and the farmer grunted, getting to his feet, not liking to be so obviously dismissed, but for once, disinclined to make an issue out of it. ‘I suppose we’d better get together round the tree and open the presents,’ he said, and shook his head. ‘Don’t feel much like it, though,’ he muttered, then glanced quickly down at them, as if daring them to comment, as if showing even a glimmer of humanity was something to be ashamed of. Guarded against. Wisely, they said nothing, but both of them watched him thoughtfully as he walked away.

  ‘A strange man, that,’ Moulton said at last.

  ‘Hmm,’ Jenny murmured. But she was thinking not of Stan, but of Sid. And the more she thought of Sid, the more her eyes were drawn to the photograph of his lovely sister-in-law, Eloise. She of the lovely dark eyes. What secrets, Jenny wondered, had she taken with her to her grave?

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jenny bent over the half-cooked goose and gave it a thorough basting. One of the many good things to be said about goose, she thought with immense satisfaction, was that there was always plenty of fat in the bottom of the pan. It was never going to go dry, unlike turkey, which could be a bit tricky. And goose fat made the best roast potatoes ever!

  The smell of the onions roasting on either side of the bird filled the air with that particularly mouth-watering phenomenon that cooking onions always produced, but unfortunately there was no one else around to fully appreciate it with her. She checked to make sure that her stuffing of sage, onion, stewed apple, herb, sausage, celery and sweet chestnut was still firmly packed deep inside the bird, and nodded, well satisfied to see that it was.

  She didn’t really mind the fact that the family had been avoiding the kitchen all that morning. On the contrary, it gave her some desperately needed time to think. Someone had turned a radio on at breakfast, and now a church service from Oxford Cathedral, in the heart of Christ Church College, came clearly across the airwaves. A poignantly sweet rendition of ‘Silent Night’ by the Christ Church Choristers helped to dispel the gloom that hung over Kelton Farm.

  She set to on the potatoes with gusto. It was simply impossible, in Jenny’s view, to have too many roast potatoes.

  She jumped when the door from the hallway opened, but it was only Moulton. ‘They’re all still huddled in the living room,’ he said gloomily, by way of greeting.

  ‘Humph,’ the cook said enigmatically.

  ‘That eldest lad — Bert. He came back an hour ago, soaked through and shivering fit to shift the rafters. Says he had to go in a pond after that dumb mutt of theirs.’

  ‘Humph,’ Jenny repeated.

  Moulton sat down at the chair, very carefully not choosing the chair that the late Sid Kelton had frequented, and reached for the perpetually filled teapot. ‘Well, I did ask to be filled in on the family background,’ Moulton sighed, ‘and I got it. In spades. I’ve heard all about poor old Sid’s “great hospital stay,” and all about how the oldest Kelton male, whether legitimate or not, has to inherit. I was even given the opportunity to go over the farm’s accounts for the last two decades, if I wanted. I declined. I think they had it in their heads that I suspected the deceased of committing some sort of financial jiggery-pokery. Not that I’d be able to tell if he had, mind. We have forensic accountants for that sort of thing,’ Moulton explained, with just a hint of pride. ‘But from what I can tell, I think the Keltons are doing very well for themselves. Very well indeed. Which is odd, when you consider how they live. You’d think none of them had a penny to rub together.’

  Jenny sighed. ‘Keeping a tight hold on the purse strings is just one of the ways Stan keeps them all in line,’ she explained flatly.

  ‘You’d think at least one of them would have the gumption to stand up for themselves.’

  ‘Humph,’ Jenny said, obviously on a roll.

  Moulton sighed heavily. ‘I do think you could be a bit more helpful, Miss oh-so-clever-Dick Starling,’ the policeman protested mildly. Then added casually, ‘After all, I can’t give my permission for you to leave the farm until after it’s all sorted out.’

  ‘Humph,’ Jenny said, but this time with much more feeling. Moulton glanced at her, totally surprised that his none-too-veiled threat hadn’t, at the very least, produced an indignant retaliation. But Jenny knew all about policemen; they tended to be a perfidious lot on the whole, in her experience.

  ‘Well, you must have some ideas by now,’ Moulton prompted, with just a hint of exasperation. ‘It’ll be quiet today, being Christmas Day and all, because the super will be at home with the family, but tomorrow, mark my words, he’ll start leaning on Bryant, and then Bryant will start leaning on me.’

  So you start leaning on me, the cook thought wryly, and reached for the horseradish to make some fresh sauce. It would make a good alternative to bread sauce. Or perhaps she should make both? Yes, she’d make both. She began to scrape the astringent root vegetable vigorously.

  Behind her, Moulton heaved an enormous sigh, then nearly jumped out of his skin as it seemed to echo right back at him.

  The dog, curled up in his favourite spot on the chair next to him and nicely hidden by the tablecloth, had a total affinity for any creature that could sigh as mournfully as that.

  ‘What the hell?’ Moulton said, but, perversely, Jenny decided not to enlighten him. Instead, she paused over her worktop and ran her hands across her pristine
apron.

  ‘I do have some ideas,’ she acknowledged at last. ‘For instance, I can tell you any number of reasons why people around here might want Stan dead,’ she began, her voice thoughtful. ‘Bert’s wife left because of him. And Bert, if I’m not mistaken, is a man very close to the edge.’

  Moulton sat up, looking distinctly happier.

  ‘Delia is desperate to get away, and regards her father as a jailer,’ she carried on inexorably. ‘And desperate people can do desperate things. Bill . . .’ She paused thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Hmm. Bill was once the prince regent around here and is now the whipping boy for some reason, and most definitely doesn’t like it.’

  ‘Ah,’ Moulton said. ‘I was wondering about that lad.’

  ‘Hmm,’ the cook murmured. So was she. ‘And Bill has a temper,’ she mused, her voice so neutral that even Moulton, the reigning champion of neutrality, was impressed. ‘Jeremy wants to marry the pub landlord’s daughter, but his grandfather’s pushing for a marriage to a local landowner’s daughter. And that, I imagine, could drive even a relative saint into a fit of murderous frustration.’ And then there was Mrs Jarvis, who perhaps had the best motive of them all. But for some reason, Jenny was loath to tell the inspector about that just yet.

  Instead she frowned over the horseradish sauce. Bread sauce was more traditional. Perhaps nobody would want it? She hated to see good food going to waste.

  ‘All good motives,’ Moulton said happily.

  ‘Hmm? Oh, yes. Only one thing wrong with them,’ Jenny pointed out logically. ‘It wasn’t Stan who got himself murdered.’

  Moulton stared at her. For a moment there, he’d allowed himself to get carried away. Now, suddenly, he slumped back. ‘Damn!’ he said distinctly. ‘It’s as if the wrong brother has been murdered. This whole setup’s beginning to get on my nerves.’ And Moulton hated his nerves to be bothered. It tended to upset his whole day.

  He heaved another woebegone sigh.

  From the depths of his paws, the sheepdog did the same. It was so good to have someone in the house who could appreciate a really good sigh.