The Colours of Murder

by Ali Carter

  Thank goodness for Daniel who’d just poked his head into the claustrophobic pagoda and suggested, ‘Susie, accompany me on a gander at the garden before the evening takes over. It’s Grade I listed you know…’

  I was up and out before he finished his sentence, ‘… and so well planned you’d struggle to believe it’s eleven acres in total. What I’d do for all this.’ His right arm cut a swathe through the scene in front of us and very nearly knocked my gin and tonic clean out my hand.

  ‘Oh, do look,’ he said as we popped out the end of a pergola walkway. ‘Can you see the back of Stanley’s head over there?’

  I wasn’t exactly sure where I should be looking.

  ‘Above that hedge in the distance.’ Daniel pointed and I turned around. ‘Archie will be pleased. He does like his visitors to jimmy riddle on the compost heaps whenever they can.’

  I gave a small grunt of amusement.

  I’ve witnessed it often enough to know the vast majority of country gents (thank goodness there’s no evidence yet of women having caught on) like nothing more than to take a leak en plein air. Whether it be in the orchard, along the herbaceous border, on the compost heap as in the case of Stanley right now, or over a bridge into a river if you’re lucky enough to have such an idyllic asset on your estate.

  Daniel and I wound our way up paths, through rose tunnels and under water features. Daniel delighted in telling me the Latin name, ‘Lathyrus odoratus’, and the common name, ‘sweet pea’, of almost everything we passed. His enthusiastic knowledge spewed out in tongue twisters as I took in one name in every three.

  ‘Where do you live?’ I asked as we headed back in the general direction we’d come from.

  ‘Oh, you know, mainly in London for the time being. I will of course move to the country when the old man kicks the bucket,’ and then, Daniel’s right leg, in an attempt to convey his words, shot out with an alarming lack of co-ordination and I had to try very hard not to laugh.

  ‘So, you’re the oldest son?’

  ‘Only son, Susie,’ he said insinuatingly (which I took to mean he needed an heir). ‘You won’t often find me in London. I travel a lot you know. Very comfortably too.’

  I asked why – knowing in the nicest possible way he wanted me to.

  ‘I hire myself out as an overseas art history guide and, as it happens, most of my clients prefer to travel by private jet.’

  ‘Nice!’ I said, thinking if I wasn’t an artist I’d love a job similar to this: swanning around Europe looking at masterpieces from the Italian Renaissance. That’s the period I’d choose to cover.

  ‘I try to keep it to twelve trips a year. Italy, Greece, Croatia and Turkey mainly. I give tours on foot, by boat or from a helicopter.’

  ‘How wonderful.’

  ‘Yes, my clients are looking for once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Eighty per cent is repeat business.’ He smiled, as did I at the oxymoron in his marketing spiel.

  When he asked me if I worked and I said, ‘Yes, I’m an artist,’ I imagined he’d want me to develop my answer further. But no, this man had a canny way of bringing the conversation back to himself, ‘How lovely. The whole point of my job is bringing art to life. There’s nothing quite like seeing pieces in their natural habitat. Wouldn’t you agree? I particularly enjoy guiding people through the rubble of temples although there’s a lot to be said for seeing a fresco in a church it was commissioned for.’

  ‘There certainly is,’ I said quickly before he began talking again.

  I didn’t actually mind Daniel monopolising the conversation as he had a lot of very interesting things to say. In fact, I liked him and felt that if his enthusiasm gave way to a two-way conversation over the weekend we’d quite likely, in such limited company, get on rather well.

  ‘Now just look at that brute of a Hall,’ he exclaimed as we walked down the lime-tree avenue. It was indeed a handsome sight at the end of the road.

  ‘This is all so beautifully kept.’

  ‘Yes, Archie’s risen to the responsibility of keeping it intact, something that makes his father, Lord Norland, immensely proud. It’s one thing inheriting nice things, Susie, and quite another having the business nous to keep it going.’

  ‘What does Archie do?’

  Maybe it was unintentional but Daniel deflected the question. ‘Archie’s a fine example to the likes of the Duke and me.’

  ‘The Duke?’

  ‘Yes, that’s George who you met in the pagoda. He’s the Duke of Thelthorp with one hell of an inheritance and between you and me I think he’d benefit from taking a few leaves out of Archibald’s book.’

  If stout George, who can’t be as much as forty-five yet – although overweight people often look younger than they are – is a duke, it means he’s the head of the family and, therefore, either his father died prematurely or married very late.

  ‘What does George do?’

  ‘He shoots!’ said Daniel amused by himself. ‘All I’ll say Susie, is, it’s never a good thing for anyone to rest heavily on their laurels.’

  The garden tour ended when we turned the corner with the front of the house and bumped into Hailey. Daniel told her he’d been talking me ‘through Archie’s bed life’, at which point her eyes came out on stalks.

  ‘Flowerbeds, Hailey!’ he said as I, in an attempt to quickly distract them both, pointed at the plant by my side and asked ‘What berries are those?’

  ‘That,’ said Daniel, proud of what he was about to tell us, ‘is belladonna and those shiny black berries were very popular with the ladies of the Middle Ages.’

  ‘Few years to go before you and I start liking them,’ said Hailey, nudging my shoulder.

  Daniel chuckled. ‘Not middle-aged, Middle Ages. That’s approximately 1100 to 1450.’

  Hailey laughed with enviable uninhibited ignorance and I asked Daniel why it was called Beautiful Woman.

  ‘Ciao Bella!’ He winked, flattering my very basic knowledge of Italian.

  ‘Well girls,’ he said as his skinny, elongated fingers reached out and theatrically plucked a particularly dark berry. ‘In the Middle Ages women rubbed these on their cheeks to create the reddish colour of a blush. Here,’ he dropped it into Hailey’s palm, ‘you try. Susie your skin’s too sunburnt.’

  Daniel wasn’t insulting me, it’s just he’s not the type to use the term ‘tanned’.

  Hailey rubbed the dark berry on her alabaster cheeks and as she did they flushed with warmth.

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Daniel clapping his hands. ‘A truer English rose I never did see.’

  Hailey and Daniel’s attention swerved over my shoulder and I turned to see Archie’s flat feet carrying him with sturdy gravity towards us as his middle-aged tummy wobbled under his Aertex.

  ‘Glad to see you couldn’t resist our gin!’ cajoled Hailey noticing the glass in his hand.

  Archie smiled at her. ‘Charlotte wanted me to tell you she’s going inside to get ready for dinner.’

  ‘Lotty’s calling,’ said Hailey, helping herself to the drink in Archie’s hand and giving it her best shot at draining it. ‘Toodle-oo!’ She raised the glass in the air, grasped the empty one from my hand and fled in the open front door. A fraction of a second later and she would have gone tumbling over the top of a lurcher, which was now coming out of the house in the manner of its name. Archie opened his short legs and the lumbering creature weaved between them and back through Daniel’s.

  ‘Och, there’s a wee bit of Jock in him,’ said Daniel with the most hopeless attempt at a Scottish accent.

  ‘This is Yang,’ introduced Archie as I patted the beautiful creature’s narrow nose, but not for long: a tennis ball came firing over the top of us and off Yang went in its general direction. Then, narrowly avoiding a collision with the wall, the skinny dog leapt into the air and clasped his jaws around the yellow ball. Daniel ran towards him with his arms wide open in play and I turned to Archie and commented, ‘Doesn’t Yang’s creamy coat look great up against th
at dark flint.’

  ‘It does indeed.’

  I found it odd that the wall was made of a different material to the house and Archie confirmed it had been built a little later. ‘My family were friends with Henry VIII and in his fitful state of destroying the local abbey he gave my, great to the power of seven, Grandpapa enough flint to build a mile of wall.’

  ‘How incredible.’

  ‘Yes, it’s rather splendid although some say as a result the house is haunted by clerical spirits.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘I’m sure it’s nonsense,’ he quickly reassured me.

  ‘Either way,’ I said, ‘I’d far rather be burgled in the night than wake up and see a ghost.’ I’d always thought that a logical comparison.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Explanations quell fear whereas the unexplainable can haunt your thoughts forever.’

  ‘Give me a ghost any day,’ he said with a resolute expression and then, oh no! it dawned on me how insensitive I’d been – Archie had a lot more possessions to worry about than I ever would.

  Suddenly, the penetrating tone of a trumpet came blaring out the front door. Charlie Letterhead’s lips were pursed to it and as he foolishly marched off the paving onto the lawn, his legs scissored as high as his waist.

  I couldn’t believe it; he was playing Handel’s Messiah, The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised. Oh God, I prayed this wasn’t some kind of cruel premonition.

  Archie’s eyebrows were raised. He’d clearly seen the act before. ‘I’m so sorry, Susie,’ he said. ‘This behaviour must seem madness to an outsider such as you are. But, don’t worry, they’re a nice bunch. I’ve known most of them for years.’

  ‘School friends?’ I asked.

  ‘Daniel, George and Charlie, yes.’

  Of course, only the boys were… Single-sex education and all that.

  ‘Oh look,’ said Archie pointing at the black lab poking its head out the front door. ‘Yin’s reappeared.’

  ‘Lovely dogs you have.’

  ‘Well they do like to run off but I trust them. Pets are your business, aren’t they? Horses at the minute, isn’t it?’

  My heart pulsed at the thought that eligible Archie had taken in something about me.

  ‘I’m a painter really but yes, I do draw people’s pets from time to time.’

  ‘How are the racehorses going?’

  ‘Right brutes to begin with, but we’ve been working on getting to know each other and they’re much better at posing now.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Archie laughed at the thought of a horse modelling and I paused for him to suggest I draw his dogs but he didn’t volunteer a commission. Perhaps if there’s time over the weekend I could do a quick sketch as a thank you and then he might bite. This tactic has worked in the past.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘I must show you to your room.’

  ‘I’ll just grab my bag from the car.’

  ‘Do let me carry it for you. I’m without a butler at the moment.’

  I accepted his offer and we walked to my car, me hoping he wasn’t going to spot his dog’s bowl underneath it.

  It wouldn’t go in. As hard as I turned it, twisted it, lifted it up and down it just would not seal. This was an old-fashioned tower bathroom plug the likes of which I’ve rarely seen, and either I needed an instruction manual on how to insert it or the seal was in fact broken.

  I really wanted to wash my hair and get it thick and bouncy in the way I know I can when clean, wet and dried upside down. I should have done it before I left Lucy’s but I was seduced by the thought of the expensive products so often found in the bathrooms of smart houses, given as gifts by previous visitors. Here I had rose volume shampoo, rose sleek conditioner and rose satin body lotion all from Pretty Petals, a brand I could never afford.

  I whipped off my clothes and got in to the cast-iron tub. I had to insert the plug in place as firmly as I could and then run both taps at top gush. The threshold of water the bath held as it drained was just deep enough to wash in. So, with foam flying onto the carpet I scrub-a-dub-dubbed in the most unrelaxing fashion but I was able to wash, and right now that was all that mattered.

  My room, as so often happens when you’re single and staying in a grand house, was on the top floor in what would have been the servants’ quarters in the days when they lived in. It was made up neatly and smelt fresh but I was yet to come across any staff. Apparently, according to Daniel, who is clearly a bit of a gossip, Archie has recently sacked them all on grounds they’d become overfamiliar with his friends. Daniel had told me he was there at the crunch point when someone’s girlfriend kissed the housekeeper hello, ‘And after that, Archie sent them all packing on the spot.’

  When I’d asked if that included the gardener he’d replied, ‘Doug’s whisked his wife Jasmine off for a week in the Borders.’ I drew the line at finding out who was cooking dinner because, although I’d enjoyed being privy to these indiscretions, I didn’t want to be full of prejudices before the evening got going.

  With hair dry and make-up done, and wearing only a skimpy pair of French knickers and bra to match, the time had come for me to slip into my dark-blue lace dress and put on my mother’s addition to my evening. Predictably concerned I wouldn’t be smart enough for Archibald Wellingham’s invitation, Mum, in good time, had parcelled up and sent recorded delivery a beautiful tiger-eye and pearl choker, which I was now wearing with pride. It’s my favourite piece of her limited collection and reason to be glad I’m an only child.

  I stood in front of the silvered armoire looking glass and agreed with myself ‘legs brown enough to go without tights’, so with a squish of perfume I left the room.

  ‘Susie with an S!’ said Hailey, seeing me come down the velvet-carpeted stairs. All eyes pounced and I wanted the bottom step to swallow me up then and there.

  ‘Here’s a glass,’ said Archie handing me a flute of champagne.

  ‘Maybe she’d prefer some of Primrose’s punch,’ suggested the overweight and undercharmed Duke, George, as he turned and ironically clinked his potent-looking blue cocktail with Hailey’s.

  ‘Champagne’s lovely, thank you,’ I accepted.

  ‘I hope your room’s okay?’ said Archie as he offered me and Hailey a cheese straw from the table beside us.

  ‘Yes, very comfortable. Thank you.’

  ‘I’m so pleased,’ he said as he turned away to top up others’ glasses.

  George plonked himself down, filling the closest chair to us, and Hailey enthusiastically asked me what my bedroom was like.

  ‘It’s at the top of the house, with a view over the courtyard.’

  ‘That makes me feel very lucky. I have a four-poster bed with curtains and all.’

  ‘Which way does it look?’

  ‘What?’ said Hailey. ‘The bed?’

  ‘No!’ I couldn’t help laughing, ‘Your room, what’s the view out the window?’

  ‘Gee honey! I ain’t been bored enough to look out the window yet!’ and with that she frolicked towards the unlit fire and laid herself down on the floor next to cream-coated Yang.

  George shuffled in his chair with pleasure as we watched Hailey’s sequin dress ride up and down her thigh with every seductive stroke of Yang’s back.

  ‘Just because you’re a duke,’ called out Hailey, George now slapping his knee, beckoning her bottom, ‘doesn’t mean you have a free ticket to girls.’

  I caught Stanley giving his wife a shocked glance and it made me wonder if George was married. Why else would they disapprove of his behaviour?

  I glanced at George’s left hand, he wasn’t wearing a ring, but this doesn’t necessarily mean he’s unattached. Such fallal is frowned upon by the upper classes, and although wedding rings are creeping into the younger male generation, many gents continue to avoid them.

  My father’s not from the nobility and doesn’t have a snobbish bone in him, but he certainly wouldn’t wear a ring. He’s a traditional
ist, not a follower of fashion, and retorts that The Roman Ritual called for the blessing of only the bride’s ring.

  When I looked into this further, driven – as is often the case – by my love of getting to the bottom of things, I discovered there’s no mention of wedding rings plural in the Book of Common Prayer either, and as far as I can tell the origins of the Double Ring Ceremonies came from a savvy advertisement campaign run by a dwindling jeweller soon after the end of the Second World War.

  Much to George’s delight, Tatiana swooped in and settled on his thigh. Her long green evening dress reminded me of an unforgettable comment once made to me from a leering toff, ‘I’m more of a legs man than a tits man, Susie, and so I do wish you’d worn a shorter dress.’

  George was clearly of the opposite opinion, as he couldn’t keep his eyes away from her plunging cleavage. Although, in all fairness, even I was drawn in by the dangling diamond necklace that set it off so beautifully.

  ‘Oi,’ said Daniel as Charlie entered the sitting room from the hall.

  He was looking, I thought, very smart in charcoal cords and a burgundy jumper, but Daniel didn’t agree.

  ‘Where’s your velvet and slippers, me old chum? Thought we were having nursery supper did we now?’

  Every other male in the room wore traditional country evening dress: velvet smoking jacket, cream (with definitely no sign of a wing collar) shirt, black bow tie and dinner-jacket trousers. The only difference in their attire being the various ‘acceptable’ colours of velvet (navy blue, burgundy or dark green).

  ‘Would you like me to wear a tie?’ asked Charlie pulling comically at the top of his shirt.

  ‘We’ll let you off wearing mufti just this once,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Tatty,’ said Archie, interrupting her à deux with George. ‘If you want to help with the first course now’s the time.’

  Tatiana rose elegantly from George’s knee and headed, I presumed, to the kitchen.

  ‘What’s Tatiana up to?’ said Primrose for us all to hear.

  ‘She’s gone to help Vicky prepare the mushrooms she picked this morning.’

  ‘Vicky eh?!’ said Charlie.