Every Trick in the Rook

by Marty Wingate

  “Julia?” Dad called to me from his end of the phone. “Are you all right?”

  “What happened?” I croaked.

  “Listen, come back now—you and Michael. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour and a half. Beryl and I will meet you both.”

  “At my cottage?” I asked, trying to grasp some mundane detail that would make sense. “At the Hall? Cambridge—should we go to your house?”

  Michael turned away from me, but I heard him say, “Right, we’re on our way.”

  “No, Jools,” Dad said, “not the village—at the police station in Sudbury.”

  “Dad—”

  “It’s a suspicious death—that’s what DI Callow says. Let’s not do this now. Can you leave soon? Will you be all right to drive? You could leave your car and come back with Michael.”

  “I’m not leaving my car in the middle of nowhere,” I said hotly. “That’s ridiculous. How would I ever get it back again?” Anger boiled up in me—I had no idea where to direct it and so Rupert took the brunt.

  “All right, drive back,” Dad said in that soothing tone meant to pacify a screaming child. “You’ll be careful?”

  “Yes, of course,” I acquiesced, all the fight gone out of me. I rang off.

  Michael had already finished his conversation, and dropped his phone on the bed as he came out of the bathroom. He hesitated, but I pulled him to me, clasping my arms round his neck and holding tight. He responded in kind, and the strength of his embrace brought feeling back into my limbs and my mind.

  “We’ve got to go,” I said. “Did Callow tell you?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Julia.”

  My grip on Michael’s neck loosened. “Sus—suspicious death,” I sputtered. “The police will explain what happened, they have to.”

  I began to stuff clothes into my bag as Michael gathered his things. In only a moment, we stood at the door of the room, bags in hand. Out the window, I could see the midday sun sparkling on the sea and a gull of some sort gliding by in the distance. I grabbed Michael’s hand.

  “It was such a lovely weekend.” My voice caught in my throat.

  “I’d say we need a return visit,” Michael said.

  I dropped my bag to reach over with my other hand and touch his cheek. “I’m very glad you’re with me.”

  He kissed the palm of my hand. “We’d best be off.”

  It had been all of ten minutes since we’d returned to the pub, and now here we were heading back down the stairs and outdoors. We stowed our bags in our cars, but we stood with keys in hand as a salty breeze circled us—I, for one, afraid to break this last contact.

  “Julia—” Michael began.

  “Michael, I had an email from Nick.” There, I’d said it; my confession blurted out, because I couldn’t think of a way to introduce it. I had been keeping the news until after our weekend, when the real world would insinuate itself into our lives again. But that wasn’t to be. “Thursday. Five years with no contact—except when we signed the divorce papers—and then Thursday, an email.”

  Michael looked out across the road for a moment, and then back at me. His eyes were a sharp, flinty blue.

  “I had an email from Nick, too.”

  —

  One of the voice messages had been from Vesta. And so before I pulled out of the car park, I rang her, switched to “speaker,” and set my phone in the cup holder so that I could talk as I drove.

  “Julia!” Her voice came in a rush of relief. “Are you all right?”

  “You’ve heard?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard nothing—only yesterday afternoon, that Detective Inspector Callow from Sudbury rang looking for you.”

  And so I explained the few details I knew.

  “What an awful thing to happen,” Vesta said. “And how difficult for you.”

  Vesta, who always seemed to understand more than was said, knew of my ambivalence toward Nick. She had heard more about it than Michael. I couldn’t tell the man in my life now that I had never loved my husband—before or during our marriage. I hadn’t hated Nick, but I certainly hadn’t loved him, either. What sort of person has no feelings whatsoever?

  Vesta asked nothing else, and I told her I’d see her on Tuesday, when I was sure I could explain further.

  I’ve no idea how long the journey to Sudbury took. I kept myself well occupied by sorting through the incongruous jumble of facts I’d been presented and trying to build them into a story that made sense.

  The last thing Michael had said to me was, “Are you all right?”

  I’d nodded, but couldn’t look at him. I wasn’t all right—but neither was I collapsed in a puddle of anguish and despair. My ex-husband was dead—shouldn’t those be the normal emotions, at least to some degree? At the very least, I should feel sad. But instead, I felt an old dullness creep over me, at once familiar and unpleasant. A small, but heavy, stone of guilt dropped into the pit of my stomach—and running through the stone, a blood-red vein of angry resentment.

  Questions flooded my mind. How had Nick died? In a “suspicious” manner. The police couldn’t fool me—I knew that to be a thinly veiled euphemism for murder. Merely thinking the word caused me to take a sharp breath. Someone had killed Nick. Did his death have something to do with the Fotheringills? Where had he been found? I had a sudden picture in my mind of the butler, Thorne, pulling open the enormous oak front door of Hoggin Hall to find Nick’s body flung across the stone entry. The image made me giggle, after which I felt even more wretched than before.

  Nick had left St. Kilda—his home these past five years—and come to Smeaton. Why? He had contacted both Michael and me and asked to meet. For the same reason or did he have a separate agenda with each of us?

  “He wanted to see me, but he didn’t say why.” It was all Michael had said before we’d left the coast. I had said the same.

  Nick had revealed nothing in his email. “Julia, I’m back on land and I’d like to see you. What do you say?” Never one for flowery words, not even a “hasn’t it been a long time” or “I hope you are well” or “I was sorry to hear about your mum.” That’s right; nearly two years ago, when my mum was run over and killed while out for a walk, we’d had an outpouring of sympathy from well-wishers everywhere. Nick’s sister, Kathleen—seventeen years his senior—had even sent a card, although she’d added nothing but her signature to the printed message “Our condolences at your loss.” Perhaps that “our” was meant to cover Nick, too. How convenient.

  Nick’s email had caught me by surprise, which I effectively had squashed, moving on to other things. But I had meant to ignore it for three days only, and had every intention of answering him after the weekend. So much for that.

  —

  A dull pain in my right temple had blossomed into a full-blown headache by the time we arrived at the Sudbury police station. I pulled my sky-blue Fiat into a stall in the car park, and Michael, driving his sea-foam-green model, just next to me.

  At the door of the building, I reached for his hand. Once inside, I took in the scene a moment before they noticed us. Rupert and Linus—who had become quite good friends over the past few months—were standing in the corner, speaking quietly. Dad wore his safari jacket and khaki trousers, but not his wide-brimmed leather hat. Linus wore a lightweight checked wool suit—well-dressed as always, although I could see the shape of his bicycle trouser clip in the pocket of his jacket. Beryl, in an uncharacteristically mismatched pink-and-green sweater set, sat nearby, tapping her fingers on an unopened magazine.

  The tableau crumbled the moment they spotted us. Beryl jumped up and gave me a hug, and Dad and Linus hurried over. They all began to speak at once, and then all stopped, leaving a chasm of silence in the room.

  The desk sergeant picked up his phone.

  “Will someone please tell me how it happened?” I asked. “What was Nick doing at the Hall? Did you see him, Linus?”

  Linus shook his head. “No, I’m so sorry, Julia, but—I have no idea of
the circumstances. He was found”—he shook his head at his own words—“in the summerhouse.”

  “The summerhouse?”

  My sluggish brain lurched forward, searching the map of the estate I had memorized. I could see it—the small, derelict, octagonal building on the other side of the drive from Hoggin Hall. It sat on a knoll, and had overlooked the fields and wood to both the east and west, until a new beech wood had grown up around it, obscuring the view. Linus said it had been his grandmother’s favorite spot for dinners during long summer evenings, and so on the website we had used a lovely old photo of him in short trousers standing on its steps next to her. I thought she looked rather severe—a bit like a peregrine staring at you head-on—but Linus spoke fondly of her.

  The summerhouse had fallen out of favor after she died, and then thirty years ago, when Linus inherited, he began his austerity program, which had meant some parts of the estate had been neglected. The summerhouse hadn’t been used in all that time, and now, the beech grove hid it from even the most discerning viewers. You had to go searching for the summerhouse these days. Out of sight, out of mind—although Linus had brought the estate back into solvency, the summerhouse had yet to appear on a list for refurbishment.

  “The summerhouse,” I repeated. “What possible reason could he have for being there?”

  “That’s just what we hope to learn, Ms. Lanchester,” a voice behind me said.

  I whirled round to find Detective Inspector Callow. I hadn’t seen her in a few months, but found her cool gaze, steel-rod posture, and tailored dark trouser suit just as intimidating as before. She kept her silver-gray hair quite short on top and a bit longer on the sides, which were swept back. No doubt her smooth skin was the result of showing no emotion—although I didn’t remember those worry lines between her brows.

  “Inspector Callow,” I said, raising my chin. “Good. Will you tell us why we’re all here? How did Nick die? Why was he on the estate?”

  “Ms. Lanchester, would you and Mr. Sedgwick come with me?” she asked, gesturing toward the door that led to the bowels of the building.

  I cast a brief glance back to Rupert, Beryl, and Linus as Michael and I were led off.

  “We’ll wait for you,” Dad said.

  Chapter 4

  We sat at a table in interview room one—according to the sign by the door—with DI Callow across from us and a thin file folder in front of her. Michael caught my eye and I gave him a small “I’m all right” smile. He took my hand.

  Callow had started the recorder just as the door bumped open and in came Detective Sergeant Glossop carrying two takeaway cups of tea, steam rising from them.

  “I thought you might could use these,” he said, setting them gently on the table. “There’s a wee bit of sugar in it.”

  I was desperate for a cup, but when I took a sip, I coughed. This was a cup my dad—a three-sugars-please tea drinker—would love. “Thank you, Sergeant,” I said. Natty Glossop nodded and straightened his jacket before sitting. He flashed a smile, looked at his boss, and the smile disappeared.

  I set my tea on the table. “I appreciate you wanting to tell me about Nick’s death, but I’m not his next of kin—we’ve been divorced for three years. You should be in touch with his sister. I may have her contact details.”

  “Thank you,” Glossop said, “but your father has provided us those. The deceased’s sister, Kathleen Hawkins, will be here day after tomorrow. She’s traveling from Nova Scotia.”

  “Well, then, did you want to explain to me how he died?”

  “When were you last on the grounds of Hoggin Hall, Ms. Lanchester?” Callow asked.

  I sensed the dance had begun—I asked a question, Callow sidestepped. What I didn’t understand was why.

  “I was there Thursday late afternoon,” I said. “Akash Kumar runs the docent program for our open days, and we had a retraining scheduled to get ready for the increase in visitors during the late spring and summer. When did Nick die? When was he found?”

  “Mr. Sedgwick?”

  “Julia and I were there for dinner on Sunday,” Michael said, cool as a cucumber, a façade he had perfected when he worked in public relations. “Rupert and Beryl, too.”

  “Cecil and Willow,” I added. “And Nuala.” It had been a jolly evening. “Inspector, how did Nick die?”

  She shot me a brief look. “Have you not been on the grounds since then, Mr. Sedgwick? Not Friday afternoon?”

  Michael cocked his head. “I—”

  “Because we have a witness who saw you turning down the drive to Hoggin Hall Friday at about three o’clock.”

  “Is that when he died—Friday?” I asked.

  “Body was found by police at 4:17 Saturday afternoon, Ms. Lanchester,” Glossop said. “The pathologist says that rigor mortis was on its way out at that point. It allows us to estimate time of death—sometime Friday afternoon.”

  “Hang on,” I said too loudly, my voice echoing off the hard surfaces of the room. “Are you accusing Michael of…of…”

  “We’re making no accusations, Ms. Lanchester,” Callow shot back. DS Glossop shifted in his chair. “I’m gathering information in a murder enquiry—you remember how that goes, I presume?”

  “What could we possibly have to tell you that would help—we were both away for the weekend.” We both did have something to tell her, it was true, but she hadn’t actually provided the opportunity yet, had she? I took a slug of my tea, forgetting how sugary it was, and almost gagged.

  “It’s all right,” Michael said. “Yes, I was on the grounds Friday afternoon—if you could call it that. For all of two minutes. I pulled into the drive, turned round, and headed out. I had forgotten that Julia and I arranged to meet at the coast, not drive together. Did your witness tell you that?”

  “Who found Nick’s body?” I persisted. I would play the role of midge and buzz in front of Callow’s face as long as it took to get a detail of any sort out of her. Surely she remembered that. “No one goes out to the summerhouse. How did anyone come across him?”

  “We received an anonymous phone call on Saturday afternoon,” Glossop said.

  “Sergeant,” the DI warned, sending her DS an icy glare.

  “They deserve that, don’t they?” he asked.

  Six months had gone by since last time I saw DS Glossop. He had been new to the job then—a bit brash, a bit unsure of himself, but full of humanity. I could see he’d gained both poise and confidence, but without any of Callow’s cold demeanor rubbing off on him.

  The DI nodded once. “Yes, fine—go ahead.”

  He continued. “The desk sergeant took it. The person identified himself or possibly herself—it’s difficult to tell—as a rambler and reported seeing a man’s body in a derelict building on the estate—quite near the Hall.”

  “It isn’t derelict,” I said, unable to think of anything else to say at the thought of Nick’s body in the summerhouse. “It only needs a bit of refurbishment.” I straightened up in my chair. “Are you going to tell us how Nick died?”

  “He died from a stab wound to the back,” Callow said, her eyes darting from my face to Michael’s and back again. “A long, thin, sharp blade, possibly a filleting knife—we haven’t found it. The blade entered the upper body, narrowly missing the spinal cord. A clean entry, but it ran straight through a major artery.”

  Blood. I saw blood everywhere—my mind was covered in a curtain of red. I grabbed for my tea, but my hand shook so much that a tsunami of lukewarm liquid sloshed over the side, across my hand, and onto my trousers. I looked down at the dark stain and shuddered. Michael gently took the cup from me, and the DS retrieved a box of tissues from the windowsill.

  As I mopped myself up, I said, “Inspector, Nick emailed me on Thursday.”

  “He emailed me, too,” Michael said. “Thursday.”

  There—our cards were on the table. Callow didn’t react—of course she didn’t—but answered smoothly. “And what were the contents of those email
s?”

  I shrugged. “He wanted to meet. He lives on St. Kilda year-round; he tracks…he tracked vagrant birds. Research. But he said he was back. I don’t know why.”

  “And did you meet?”

  “No. I didn’t even reply. Michael and I were going to the coast for the weekend, and I thought I’d answer on Monday. Tomorrow.”

  “Mr. Sedgwick?”

  Michael already had the email pulled up on his phone, which he set on the table and pushed over to the officers. They leaned over, and the DS read aloud: “Nick Hawkins here. You know who I am? I’d like to meet. Tomorrow afternoon—someplace we can talk. I’ll come to Julia’s village.”

  My village. The drive to Hoggin Hall. The summerhouse, although mostly hidden from view, was not far off the drive. I logged these facts as I’m sure Callow did, but I doubt if we came to the same conclusion.

  “And did you, Mr. Sedgwick? Did you meet him?”

  “No,” Michael said. “I’ve already told you that. I sent no reply. I wanted to talk with Julia about it first.”

  “Had you ever met Mr. Hawkins? Ever seen him?”

  “I…” Michael’s expression shifted slightly, and he glanced away and back again before saying, “I don’t know what he looks like.”

  Don’t think I didn’t see Callow cut her eyes at me.

  “It isn’t as if I keep old wedding photos on the mantel,” I told her.

  She reached inside the file folder and took something out. Before I could think, I gasped and recoiled, covering my mouth with my hand.

  Callow leaned forward and said, “It’s only the photo from the identification he had with him.” But I knew there were more photos in that folder—there had to be. Photos of Nick from every angle—dead and lying in a pool of his own blood. That’s what police do, they collect photos of bodies.

  “AIL,” Michael said, looking at Nick’s ID.

  AIL—I knew those letters. “Avian Institute of Learning,” I said. “The place he worked.” I leaned over to look and frowned at the identification photo. Nick had let his hair grow; it came down to his shoulders, scraggly and thin. He wasn’t smiling. Typical.