Death Plays a Part (Cornish Castle Mystery, Book 1)

by Vivian Conroy

  The girl who had come in with Kensa was still at the door, watching the scene as if the take-charge behaviour embarrassed her.

  Their shared surname – Morgan – suggested these two were related, but there was little likeness in their faces. While Kensa was blonde with bags under her eyes suggesting she slept badly, Tegen had wild raven hair and a deep tan as if she was outdoors a lot. She wasn’t in medieval garb either but a green shimmery cocktail dress that ended two inches above the knees.

  Tegen focused on Oliver, and her expression lit. ‘I had no idea you were back here, Ollie.’

  Oliver didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm for their reunion. He looked at her dress and said, ‘I’m sure polyester wasn’t around in the Middle Ages.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of all of those people. Mum says the society is inviting members from other societies to attend. There might even be a piece in the newspapers. I want to look good.’ Tegen smoothed down the short skirt, the silver bracelets on her left arm tinkling. Intrigued by the sound, Dolly came over, and Tegen sat on her haunches at once to scratch the doggy behind the ears. ‘We need a dog too, Mum. Just a small one like this. At Emma’s there was an ad for puppies.’

  Kensa’s eyes narrowed. ‘What were you doing at Emma’s?’

  Tegen ignored the question and said, ‘Golden retriever puppies. They’re so fluffy and cute.’

  Kensa had returned to her basket and looked Oliver over. ‘Don’t they feed you on your travels?’

  ‘Mum!’ Tegen shot to her feet and elbowed her. ‘He’s just lean.’

  Oliver didn’t seem to hear as he lifted the cloth covering off the basket. There were garments inside like the one Kensa wore herself, of coarse dark material. Oliver scoffed as he ran his hand over the fabric. ‘Haydock’s going to wear this? That’ll be the day. Why didn’t he want to be the judge in the play? Be on the good side of the law?’

  Looking past him as if he didn’t exist, Haydock said to Kensa, ‘Now that the costumes are ready for us to wear during our rehearsal tonight it will be even more real than other times.’

  He seemed to want to catch Kensa’s eye, but she avoided looking at him, fussing with the basket instead. Her reluctance to engage formed a complete contrast with her earlier dominant behaviour.

  Oliver pressed Haydock, ‘Why did you want to be Branok?’

  Haydock’s eyes flashed a moment. ‘Branok was a resourceful man. Without him this castle would have ended up destitute. He saved it. He should never have been tried.’

  ‘He wasn’t convicted,’ Oliver scoffed. ‘He got away scot-free.’

  ‘Scot-free? He was forced to leave the island. Even without any conviction his old life as he had built it was over. Hardly fair.’

  ‘Fair?’ Kensa hitched a brow. ‘That man was guilty of the death of two small children. Hurting children is the worst thing anyone can ever do.’

  There was a short tense silence. Haydock seemed to have flinched under her words as if they struck him across the face.

  Then Kensa said in a forced light tone, ‘Do you have the Branok ring?’

  ‘Yes,’ Haydock said, reaching into his pocket as if to produce it.

  Everybody watched him expectantly, but he retracted his hand. ‘When I’m dressed, I’ll put it on.’ He looked around slowly. ‘You’ll be surprised to see it. It’s the genuine article.’

  ‘I don’t believe you have a ring dating back to Branok’s lifetime,’ Oliver said at once. ‘Where would you have found it?’ He surveyed him suspiciously.

  ‘Maybe not dating back to Branok’s lifetime, but it’s centuries old. And intimately connected with Cornisea.’ Haydock smiled as he said it, hiding some secret satisfaction related to the ring he carried on his person.

  Everybody waited for him to go on, but he didn’t seem willing to reveal more about it right now.

  Then Bolingbrooke said, ‘Yes, well, let’s get on with it. Everybody better get dressed and then I’ll lock Branok in the dungeon. Perhaps Oliver can go down there already to light the torches?’

  He looked at Guinevere and explained, ‘We still have no electric light in the dungeons. It’s old-fashioned torches along the wall.’

  ‘More like lanterns with tea lights in it.’ Oliver gestured at her. ‘Do you want to come along? Then you can see the dungeon. Everybody else has already seen it.’

  The latter seemed meant to stop Tegen, who appeared about to invite herself along.

  Guinevere agreed and snapped her fingers at Dolly, who immediately came to her side. They followed Oliver out of the room. The last thing Guinevere saw was Tegen, whispering angrily to her mother. Kensa wasn’t listening though as she was watching Haydock and his daughter Leah with a brooding look.

  ‘Nobody seems to like each other,’ Guinevere observed as they took a corridor that led into a dim recess. ‘Is all this tension just because of the play? Kensa seemed to force her directions onto the others.’

  ‘That’s just the way she is.’ Oliver sighed. ‘She thinks she did most of the work for the play, gathering information from sources kept here at the castle. So she believes she should tell everybody how to act the part. Besides, they’ve all been stuck here for all of their lives. They have history with each other.’

  ‘History?’ Guinevere asked, trying to interpret the word.

  Oliver made a gesture. ‘If you asked my father, he’d say Kensa is always supporting Haydock, because she’s in love with him. But that was ages ago, before she married her husband. Haydock was ambitious even then and he would never have married someone who wasn’t in his league. The woman he did marry brought in money and connections so he could establish his law firm. His only disappointment in life is that he doesn’t have a son to take over.’

  ‘So he took Leah in.’ Guinevere understood. ‘Is she her father’s successor now?’

  ‘She’d be very stupid if she agreed to that.’

  Oliver sounded bitter again, like he had before. Apparently, there was also history between him and Leah. Concerning her professional choices?

  ‘Why would it be stupid?’ Guinevere probed. ‘Leah seems so eager to please her father.’

  ‘That’s exactly why. The old kitchens,’ Oliver said, waving his hands in that direction. ‘But we’re going down here.’ He took the iron ring on an old door in his hand and pulled. The door opened slowly with an ominous creak.

  Guinevere felt a shiver go down her spine. Dungeons had been creepy places in times gone by. People had been locked up there with the rats, awaiting trial or execution. Without daylight, with just a little food. And foremost no hope of ever getting free again.

  Oliver gestured. ‘Ladies first.’

  Dolly yapped and seemed eager to explore the dark void ahead.

  Guinevere hung back and protested, ‘But I have no light.’

  ‘Here you go.’ Oliver reached inside the door and produced a large torch. ‘Hold tight, it’s heavy.’

  Guinevere took it from his grasp and switched it on. The light fell on a stone floor that soon turned into steps that went down. Guinevere moved forward carefully, keeping her eyes trained on the floor right before her feet. Dolly didn’t seem to mind the darkness as she jogged ahead, sniffing every few paces. Her nails scratched across the stone.

  Behind Guinevere’s back the door fell to a close. The sound echoed away into the emptiness ahead of her. Goose bumps rose on her arms.

  ‘Spooky, huh?’ Oliver said at her shoulder.

  Guinevere shivered, imagining rustling ahead of them and reddish rodent eyes lighting up in the darkness, but she forced herself to walk on quietly. ‘What was that between your father and Haydock anyway? They seemed ready to come to blows. And you had even warned him to avoid such a situation.’

  ‘Yes, well, Haydock should of course not set one foot here. It’s asking for trouble. But he’s in the play, he’s our leading man even, so we have to put up with him.’ Oliver took a deep breath. ‘Haydock and his Cornisea
Historical Society are after the castle.’

  Chapter Three

  It was a short terse statement with a lot of implications.

  Oliver said, ‘They believe they can do a better job of exploiting it. Open it to the public.’

  ‘It would draw people in droves. It’s so beautiful.’

  ‘It’s also private property. People should respect that.’ Oliver tapped her shoulder. ‘Watch your step now; it’s very uneven in places.’

  They reached a large room with metal cage constructions along the wall. There were four of them on either side. Each cage had metal rings in the wall to which the prisoners used to be shackled. In one of the cages there was a table and a chair.

  Dolly managed to squeeze herself through the bars and dashed under the table. When she ran out on the other end, she touched the chair, and it tottered, almost falling over.

  ‘Come here, girl,’ Guinevere called and added to Oliver, ‘The floor is really ragged there.’

  ‘Yes, the cells were never meant to have furniture in them. But Haydock claimed that by the time of the Branok trial these cells weren’t what they had once been. He wants to sit at that table, writing up his last will. History does say Branok wrote a will in here, or a map with directions to his hidden stash, whatever you like to believe, but I bet he did it shackled to the wall. If he could write at all, of course. Over time he must have become larger than life, while he might just have been a lawless scoundrel.’

  ‘But he was steward at the castle, right? Shouldn’t a steward have been able to read and write?’ Guinevere asked curiously.

  ‘Not necessarily. Branok might have been appointed because he was shrewd and knew how to play people. A clerk may have kept the accounts. Many orphans who had been raised at monasteries could read and write and they found positions at keeps like this one.’

  ‘If Branok had a clerk who knew about all his dealings, and some of them were unfair, that clerk must have been his accomplice,’ Guinevere mused. ‘Was he heard at the trial?’

  ‘A partner in crime?’ Oliver winked at her. ‘I doubt that Branok shared his illegal transactions with the clerk who kept the official records for the castle. He probably went about that business alone.’ He scanned her expression. ‘You sound like you know something about trials.’

  ‘More about murder investigations. We’ve been rehearsing a play set in the roaring Twenties about a murder at an estate where young ladies are groomed for high society. I helped working out some kinks in the scenario.’

  ‘In the scenario?’ Oliver frowned.

  ‘Yes, some clues were too obscure. And one motive didn’t make sense at all. The audience does need a fair chance to unmask the killer, you know.’ She looked at the cell Haydock was going to use. ‘Only one way in – through the door. But there is a sort of hole in the wall?’

  She pointed at a square, large enough to put a man’s fist through. Light seeped in, but the outside world couldn’t be seen clearly as the walls were so thick that her view was obstructed by the stone she looked upon.

  ‘It’s like something is moving on the other side,’ Guinevere said, squinting. ‘The light isn’t flowing in naturally.’

  ‘Probably bushes,’ Oliver said. ‘That’s the garden out there. I think …’ He frowned as if conjuring up the plan of the castle in his mind. ‘Rhododendrons.’

  ‘So these dungeons are not like cellars?’

  ‘In part,’ Oliver said. ‘You may have noticed that the castle’s entry door has steps in front of it. The whole castle is built a little higher, as it were, and the room below was used for these dungeons and for cellars to keep food. The dungeons did not need to be deep underground as escape was virtually impossible anyway. Just look at it. You were shackled to the wall. Then the cage was locked. The door through which we just entered was bolted from the outside. And there were always people around.

  ‘So even if a prisoner miraculously made it out of the dungeon, he’d not be out of the castle yet. He would most likely be spotted. At night the gate was closed, and a gatekeeper kept watch over it. Also keep in mind that the island’s cut off from the mainland during high tide. So a prisoner would have to know exactly when he could use the causeway or have a boat ready for his escape.’

  ‘It could only have been done with an accomplice,’ Guinevere said. The silence made her lower her voice. ‘If someone came from the outside, to lure the guard away, made sure a boat was ready and waiting along the beach … Maybe even delivered the key of the shackles to the prisoner.’

  ‘In a homemade pasty?’ Oliver grinned. ‘We should have forgotten about re-enacting this boring trial and gone for a daring escape instead. It would have been so much more fun.’

  He made a movement as if he brandished a club over his head. ‘Knock the guard down, sneak through the dark passageways …’

  Guinevere had to laugh. ‘I think the historical society would not have approved. That’s not how Branok’s story played out.’

  ‘Well, sometimes to sell something you need a little fiction to make it juicier. Ah, the lighter. Can you open the lanterns’ doors for me? They’re slightly crooked and never stay open when I want them to.’

  They had to stand closely together to make it work. Guinevere looked at Oliver’s features as the lighter’s flame threw shadows across it. She couldn’t make any sense of him. What he was about. If he really disliked his father and the castle, or only pretended he did.

  And if so, why.

  ‘Hello?’ Oliver tapped her shoulder. ‘Are you there? We’re all done. Father can come down to lock Haydock in. My part as judge will be a disaster of course. I haven’t had time to rehearse, and Haydock will be livid when my stumbling ruins the flow.’

  He leaned over to her, whispering, ‘Who knows, I might condemn that scoundrel to death anyway.’

  ***

  The flickering light of a few candles illuminated the group gathered in the tall room.

  Oliver sat on a carved chair, holding a broomstick by way of wand of office. His father had said he would only produce the real wand, which was part of the castle’s collection, for the actual trial. That one special night when everybody would be present.

  Kensa, grave in her plain garment, had given her testimony to condemn Branok for killing two innocent children when he had ordered the house to be set on fire.

  ‘But he never knew the children were in there,’ Leah had just said. She was a witness to defend Branok and plead his innocence. ‘You yourself had left them, being a bad mother who neglected her brood. You were at the inn meeting men and inviting them to the attic above the horse shed.’

  ‘I am not proud to say I made money that way in the old days,’ Kensa replied, ‘but not any more after I wed Merek.’

  Leah laughed. ‘We all know Merek is a weak man who drinks too much. He may earn money but he spends it on stout and ale, not on your children. If you wanted them to have anything, anything at all, you had to return to your old trade.’

  Oliver lifted a hand. ‘Do we know,’ he asked in an exaggerated baritone voice, ‘where the accusing party was when her house burned to the ground? Was she really at the inn with men?’

  ‘I have witnesses to confirm it,’ Leah said eagerly, gesturing to where Tegen and Bolingbrooke were waiting for their turn.

  ‘All liars, for gain!’ Kensa cried. She beat her fist on the wooden table before her.

  ‘You are accusing the other party of bringing bought witnesses into this court?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘Before this tribunal,’ Bolingbrooke corrected audibly from the side.

  Guinevere suppressed a laugh, as this was so like rehearsal in their London theatre.

  Oliver frowned at the interruption, but the women, completely into their parts, were already moving on.

  Kensa cried, ‘Yes, my lord, he has done it before. He is a wicked man who buys people’s words for gain. He is a murderer too, of innocent children.’

  ‘She is just accusing Branok out of spite.’
Leah’s cheeks were red as she leaned forward. She had let down her hair, and it hung to her shoulders in waves, framing her delicate features. The dark colour of the plain garment underlined her solemnity. ‘Branok never wanted her and told her husband of her lecherous activities at the inn. Merek beat her for it, and she blamed Branok. But it was her own doing that got her beaten and also got her children killed. The thatch on the roof caught fire when she was not there. It was not arson.’

  Oliver opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to have forgotten his lines. He scrambled to pull a piece of paper from his pocket.

  Bolingbrooke called out, ‘Hurry up with that cheat sheet; you’re spoiling the momentum.’

  Oliver nodded. ‘Calm yourself. I’m just a stand-in. What does he say here? Oh, yes. Do you have proof of that?’

  ‘The house is burned to the ground,’ the mother wailed. ‘How can I produce proof of anything?’

  ‘We can confirm that Branok was elsewhere at the time,’ Leah said. ‘He didn’t do this evil deed. Nobody did. It was an accident.’

  Guinevere thought that, if Leah was like this in real court cases, she had to win a lot. But then she wasn’t even sure what Leah’s part in her father’s law firm was and what kind of cases they handled. Maybe it was just settling disputes and mediating between people? Nothing as big and dramatic as this old trial. It seemed like tension grew with every line, filling the room up to the shadows in the rafters overhead.

  ‘It is high time I hear the accused speak his own mind.’ Oliver rose slowly from his seat. ‘I will go to him in his place of …’

  He consulted his cheat sheet again. ‘Confinement. Looking at this poor woman who suffered such loss, he will not be able to lie. I will see in his face if he speaks the truth.’

  He looked around. ‘Is that the way they did it those days? Just take the villain’s word for it that he hadn’t done it?’

  Bolingbrooke exhaled as if the delay was getting on his nerves. ‘Apparently. As Branok was influential, his word was worth a lot. And what else do you suggest to get at the truth? Torture?’