The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

She pulled the knot in the cord tight. “Pierre, definitely, and his friend from France, and maybe half a dozen others, mostly blokes I didn’t recognize who came in to help for the night.”

  “And you drove straight home?”

  “No, I sat in my car for thirty minutes or so…”

  “You were waiting for someone?”

  Her face turned as red as a stop sign. “Uh huh,” she mumbled.

  “Who would that be?”

  “Duncan.” Fiona plucked at her spandex leggings. “We’d agreed to meet after the party. I’d parked around the back near the tradesman’s entrance. He said he’d bring a bottle of champagne. But he never came. I waited until 1.30, gave up and drove home.”

  “You didn’t come back into the kitchens to look for him?”

  “No.” She tossed her head. “I’m not, like, desperate you know. Half the boys in the village want to take me out. If Duncan had decided he didn’t want to bother, I wasn’t going to go chasing after him. He’s not that good-looking, and he’s, you know, old. His loss.” Her eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bad-mouth a dead person. But I never saw him, not after we talked in the kitchen around eleven o’clock.”

  I thought back to when I’d gone to the kitchen with Duncan to collect more champagne. It had been, as Fiona said, around eleven.

  “And my dad knows what time I came in,” Fiona continued. “Because he’d just got back from a call-out, a horse with colic over near Portsonachan. We had a cup of cocoa together.”

  “Thank you, Fiona,” McMahon said. “You’ve been very helpful. Now, I’ve kept you all long enough. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have anything to report.”

  Fergus stood up. “What do you think? Is tonight’s attacker the same man who murdered Duncan?”

  McMahon tapped his fingers against the stained and scratched cover of his notebook. “That’s what I plan to find out. And until I do, I’m posting two officers here to keep an eye on the grounds and the house.”

  “That’s not necessary—” Fergus started, but McMahon interrupted. “It’s a sensible precaution until we know what we’re dealing with. We have to assume that whoever threw that incendiary device intended for it to kill you, and that he’ll try again.”

  Josh and I stood too, but McMahon remained seated. “Can you spare me a minute?” he asked me, gesturing me back into my chair. We waited while the others left the room. He had the ability to be perfectly still, I noticed. Not the stillness of lethargy or inattention, but of a contemplative calm I couldn’t help envying.

  “Tell me again about this threat to Fergus, this sign that you see,” he said finally.

  As I described the aura to him and related some of my previous experiences with it, his face remained inscrutable.

  “You say it’s possible to save people? How does that work?”

  “When I see that someone is in danger, I try to identify the source of the threat. If I can determine that, then it’s sometimes possible to alter the outcome.”

  “You fancy yourself as an investigator then?”

  From his tone, I couldn’t tell whether that he meant it as a sincere question or sarcasm. “Yes, in a way,” I answered. “I find out as much as possible about the… victim and his or her current circumstances. I look for clues and for ways to avert the disaster. Of course, not every aura signifies death through foul play. Sometimes, it’s far more straightforward, like a medical condition or an accident.”

  “Did young Nick have one of these aura thingies?”

  “He must have done, but I didn’t meet him. I only knew that he hadn’t turned up for work. Mrs. Dunsmore told me, and Pierre was upset, because it meant more work for him.”

  “You’re acquainted with Pierre?”

  “I talked with him over lunch on Friday.”

  “Does he have a problem with Fergus? A reason to hate him?”

  I stared, but McMahon’s expression remained fixed. “You think Pierre is the killer?” I asked. “That he might go after Fergus?” I thought about the missing carving knife.

  “I’m only asking your opinion.”

  “Well, he can’t have thrown the firebomb through the window,” I said. “He was in the kitchen with Mrs. Dunsmore and Lachlan when it happened. They both said so.”

  The inspector nodded. “Yes, that’s right, of course. Any other ideas on who the perpetrator could be?”

  “Well, it’s not Josh,” I said.

  McMahon pressed his lips together. “Josh?”

  “You seem to think he had a motive to kill Duncan,” I said. The smell of smoke still filled my nostrils and my throat itched. “But he obviously had nothing to do with that firebomb, which means there’s someone else out there who intends harm to Fergus. Besides, Josh loves his uncle. He’s one of the most ethical, moral people I know. He’d never hurt anyone.” Tears burned my eyes, and my chest hurt with the effort of convincing McMahon of Josh’s innocence. My throat was scratchy, and I started coughing.

  The inspector leaned forward and gave me a rare smile. “Please, try not to worry. It’s my job to ask difficult questions, to try out various hypotheses in order to arrive at the truth.”

  “Will you take him off your suspect list?”

  “Let’s get back to you and your theories on the threat to Fergus. Do you have any ideas you want to share with me, something that I might not know?”

  “I thought I knew what was going on, but now I’m not so sure.” I slumped back in my chair, suddenly feeling weary. I wanted to lie down in my room.

  “Please go on, Miss Benedict. Anything you say will be held in complete confidence.”

  “Can you call me Kate? It’s less intimidating.”

  McMahon allowed himself another brief smile. “Kate it is.”

  “Lucy and Duncan were searching the castle for a valuable artifact, a Fabergé egg, to be exact. I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I thought you should know. In case it has something to do with Duncan’s death.”

  “Tell me more about this egg. What makes it so valuable?”

  I explained what Lucy had told me about the missing Fabergé treasure and the possible connection to the castle. “But it was all very vague,” I said. “And even if the egg exists, why does it present any kind of danger to Fergus? He’s never even heard of a missing egg. And he certainly doesn’t know where it is.”

  For once, McMahon’s normally composed features were creased in a frown. “This is very interesting,” he said, as he jotted a note in his book.

  “There’s something else,” I said. “Duncan had a journal in his drawer. There were some notes in it that I thought were unusual. I wrote them down.” I dug around in my jeans pocket for the scrap of paper, spread it on the table and traced the writing with my finger. Alexandra 1917. Anna Vyrubova 1939, Cyril Thorpe 1940.

  McMahon gazed at it. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Not yet. I’m working on it.”

  McMahon copied the names and dates into his notebook and then snapped it closed. “This number is my mobile,” he said, passing me a business card. “I’ll always answer it. If you think of anything at all, at any time, phone me.”

  I put the card and the list back in my pocket and pushed away from the table.

  “One more thing,” he said, as he got to his feet. “You say that you can change the fate of the victim, sometimes through a small action. Would you recommend that Fergus leave the castle, for a while at least? Perhaps he should come with you to London, or visit one of his friends in Oxford. Would that be enough to avert a disaster?”

  “It might be. I’ll talk to him. If I can convince him to leave, I’ll let you know.”

  I wasn’t optimistic though. From the little I knew of Fergus, he was stubborn and he loved his home. Nor would he go anywhere without Arbroath. I would do my best, but it seemed a foregone conclusion that I’d fail.

  22

  After Inspector McMahon had gone, I went to my room to get
cleaned up. Josh was there, already showered and dressed. While I took off my delectably smoke-scented clothes, I told him what McMahon and I had discussed.

  “That’s good,” Josh said. “He’s not discounting your insights and he’s listening to you.”

  “But he wouldn’t commit to taking you off the suspect list. He told me not to worry, but that’s no help. Oh, and he asked if we should persuade Fergus to leave the castle. Maybe a change of venue would be enough, you know, to alter the outcome. But I can’t see him agreeing to leave, can you?”

  “First of all, don’t worry about me. And no, I doubt Fergus would leave, especially not right now with all the work to be done on preparing the estate for the sale. My view is that we have to stay and see this through. Besides, there’s no guarantee that moving Fergus will eliminate the risk, is there?”

  “No, not really. Which means we need to be focused, one hundred percent, on working out what threatens him. After dinner, let’s review everything we know, however imprecise and fuzzy it is. If you and I collaborate, perhaps something will become obvious. We’ll ask Fergus to help too.”

  In the bathroom, I examined my soot-marked face in the mirror and wondered how McMahon had conducted a serious conversation with me without being distracted by the black splotch on the end of my nose. My blue eyes, normally my favorite feature, were still red-rimmed and watery and my hair was sticky from the oily smoke. Once I was in the shower and standing under the cascade of hot water, though, I felt a little more optimistic. With a police presence on the grounds, help from Inspector McMahon, and some clear thinking on my part, we could save Fergus.

  Dinner was a subdued affair. Pierre brought up plates of seafood risotto from the small kitchen and served us in the dining room, which loomed cavernous and cold with only the three of us there. I was happy, however, to see that Arbroath had survived the fire with nothing but a tuft or two of singed hair. He slept contentedly under the table, his chin resting on Fergus’s shoe, but his master looked despondent, barely aware of Josh’s valiant attempt to hold a conversation. Finally, Fergus pushed away his plate, the food half-eaten, and leaned back in his chair.

  “I’ve got some work to do on the inventories. I never had time to finish them with everything that happened…” he trailed off, no doubt thinking of the chaos the weekend had brought. “And Knox is expecting me to email them to him tomorrow.”

  “We’ll re-do them with you,” I offered. “It’ll go faster with three.”

  “I’m wondering if it’s a sign.” Fergus folded his napkin into a tiny square. “A sort of cosmic warning that I shouldn’t sell the estate after all.”

  So that’s what was on his mind. Josh laid down his knife and fork. “Cosmic warning? You don’t believe in that sort of thing.”

  “I didn’t think you did either, but you trust Kate and her aura sightings.” Fergus sighed. “I don’t know. Nick? Duncan? Would they be alive if I hadn’t decided to sell the estate?”

  “Nick’s death wasn’t related to the estate sale,” Josh reasoned. “And there’s no indication that Duncan’s was either.”

  “Let’s assume for a minute that there is a connection.” My words drew a frown from Josh. “For one thing, there’s the timing. Both of them died this weekend— after Stanton Knox arrived to negotiate the contract.”

  Fergus snorted. “You’re saying Knox killed Duncan? And somehow convinced Nick to drown himself?”

  “No, of course not. But bear with me for a minute. As DCI McMahon has repeated several times, what is the motive? Why was Duncan killed? Who stood to gain?”

  We gazed at each other for a few moments, and then Fergus shrugged. “I have no idea, but I don’t believe that Knox had a hand in it.”

  “No,” I agreed. “Probably not, but that doesn’t mean that the sale isn’t in some way responsible for their deaths.” Fergus grimaced, so I changed the subject. “Thinking of Knox, were you able to reach him?”

  Fergus checked the gilt clock that ticked loudly on the sideboard. “Not yet. It’s nine-fifteen. He’ll still be in the air. His plane lands in San Francisco at four, California time. That’ll be midnight here.” He pushed back his chair. “I won’t be able to sleep anyway, so I’ll ring him later. Until then, I’m off to the library to finish my list of books. If you’d care to join me, I’ll share my bottle of Lagavulin with you.”

  Ten minutes later, we sat in the battered old leather sofas, with our drinks in hand and Arbroath at our feet. “What do you want us to do?” I asked.

  Fergus gave me a leather binder, the one I recognized that Lucy had been using when working on the book list. “Fortunately, this and the other original inventories were in here, not on my desk in the office,” he said. “This one is the catalogue of all the books I own.”

  “Why the detailed lists?” I asked. I glanced at the shelves. “I suppose most of the books are valuable?”

  Fergus nodded. “There are lots of rare books in here. My grandfather began the book register as a project when he inherited the estate. He was an avid collector and a mathematician. Apparently, he enjoyed combining his two passions by cataloguing his collections. My father updated them all in the 1950s, but they haven’t been touched since.” He tapped the binder. “Lucy and I verified that the entries in here matched the physical books. If we couldn’t find a book on the shelf, we wrote it on a “Missing” list. We just need to finish it. Then I’ll put a check mark next to the books I want to keep, and that will be that.”

  “Seems straightforward enough.” I wished we had a computer to work on. It would be much faster to enter everything into a spreadsheet, but the poor PC was a lump of molten plastic and metal now, so we’d have to do things the old-fashioned way.

  There were around two hundred books left to match to the inventory document. I enjoyed handling the books, with their smell of leather and old paper, dust and a vague fragrance of vanilla. Duncan had been searching these shelves. Did he think the egg was hidden behind the books? I tilted a few of them forward and examined the space behind them. From the little I knew about the eggs, it was possible there was enough room for one to be stashed back there. I ran my eyes along the shelves that lined the room. It seemed as though there were miles of them. It would take forever to check every one.

  “Remember Lucy said she and Duncan were looking for a Fabergé egg?” I said to Fergus. “Duncan was rummaging about in here, examining the shelves.”

  Fergus raised an eyebrow. “It’s not a crime to look at a bookshelf.”

  “No, more than that,” I said. “He was taking books down and searching the space behind them as though he was looking for something specific. He’d written some things in his journal too.”

  “Journal?”

  “I found it in his room, had a quick look at it, and put back. The police have it now.”

  Fergus shook his head. “You’re losing me.”

  I was losing me too. I needed to slow down and consider things more carefully.

  “I’d be happy to stop talking about hidden treasures, Kate,” Fergus said with a frown. “We have more important things to address than an egg with some jewels stuck on it. I can’t tell you definitively that it’s not in the house but I have my doubts. My father or my grandfather would have recorded it. Like I said, my grandfather was an expert collector and he was also very organized. Just about every teacup and saucer is accounted for, and he kept receipts for all his purchases. For now, we have to focus on getting these blasted inventories done so I can sell the old place and be done with it.”

  My neck flushing warm from the rebuke, I murmured an apology and continued checking the books in my section. But I was thinking about Fergus’s grandfather, Gordon MacKenna. Lucy said he’d bought the egg from a dealer in 1940. Fergus said he kept all his receipts.

  Although I knew I was risking Fergus’s wrath, I had to ask. “Where did your grandfather store the receipts for his purchases?”

  Josh coughed loudly as Fergus swung around to look at
me. I knew he was stressed. Selling the estate was a heart-wrenching process. And then I’d told him he was about to die. “I just think it’s possible the treasure is connected to the threat to you,” I said. “It could be the reason Duncan was killed.”

  Fergus sighed, placed the book he was holding back on a shelf and walked over to the sofa. “The receipts were in a filing cabinet in my office, lass.”

  “Oh.” So much for that line of inquiry.

  “Can we take a break from the inventory?” I asked. “I think it’s important that we follow any clues that might lead us to uncover the source of danger to you.”

  “I’d be glad to,” Fergus replied. “We’re close enough to done, although I still have the furniture list to prepare. Still, under the circumstances, Knox can wait for a few days. I have plenty of time.”

  That’s not how I saw it. Gazing at his aura, I knew that time was not on our side.

  “I need some paper and a pen,” I said. “I always think more clearly when I write things down.”

  Fergus produced the items, and we huddled around the coffee table with the blank paper in front of us.

  “Let’s start with the main fact,” I said. “Fergus, you’re going to die unless we do something.”

  “Jeez, Kate.” Josh looked shocked. “That’s a bit direct.”

  “But it’s true. It’s what we have to focus on. All right, Fergus?”

  He nodded. I picked up the pencil and dropped it a second later when the shrill tone of the phone tore through the room. Fergus jumped up and went to the desk to answer it. He had his back to us while he talked, and I couldn’t hear his words, but the slump in his shoulders suggested that he’d just got bad news. He replaced the receiver and turned around. “That was Lachlan. He and those two police officers are pursuing someone in the grounds. They told us to stay away from the windows and turn the lights off.”

  Josh and I looked at each other and then at the window, a large black mirror reflecting the light from the table lamps.

  “I say, no bloody way.” Fergus headed to the door. “I’m not sitting here waiting for another bomb to be lobbed at me. I’m going to help Lachlan. You coming?”