‘The money he appropriated from people he treated badly. It was never found. Some claim it’s still on the island. Cornisea has a reputation as a treasure island. Not just because of Branok. Meraud down at The Cowled Sleuth bookshop has a lot of books about it. You should ask her.’
‘And Jago? Does he know about it? He seems to know this island like the back of his hand.’
Emma leaned back on her heels. She seemed to weigh her words, then said, ‘Funny you should mention him. Jago has been up to something lately. I saw him with Haydock the other day. Haydock was giving him money. And it wasn’t ten pounds either if you know what I mean. I think Jago had worked something out for him. Something to do with Branok’s stash maybe.’
Guinevere’s eyes widened. ‘But they never mentioned anything specific about it? Jago? Or Haydock?’
‘No, they weren’t talkative types. Kensa took all the credit for having put together this Branok trial thing, but I always thought Jago was the heart of it. He knows more about local lore than anybody else. I hadn’t expected him to work for Haydock though. It never seemed they took to each other. Haydock felt he was better than all of us. He never set foot here.’ She gestured around her.
‘Oh, so he didn’t want to buy your eatery and make it part of his open-air museum?’
Emma’s eyes flashed. ‘He came to our mainland café three weeks ago. He said he had a great business proposition. My husband told him he didn’t even want to hear it. That he wasn’t going to sell anyway. Not the eatery, not the brewery. We have shares in that too, you know. My brother-in-law runs it.’
‘I see. So Haydock couldn’t get all business owners to agree to sell to him?’
‘I don’t think so. I bet he wanted Kensa to talk us into it. He was thick as thieves with her, and she did everything he asked. But it would have made no difference. We weren’t going to sell to him anyway.’ She nodded firmly, then flushed. ‘Of course now that he’s dead we should be kinder about him but … There was nothing likeable about him. Not one thing.’
‘I see.’ Guinevere picked up her ice cream and took a quick lick of the double chocolate that was starting to leak down the cone. ‘Thank you, and this is really delicious.’
Carrying her postcards outside into the bright sunshine, her thoughts raced to make sense of the new information. Jago working for Haydock, providing him with his in-depth knowledge of Cornisea history?
Haydock and Kensa? After all, Emma had just said the two of them had been as thick as thieves.
Guinevere looked down at Dolly and said, ‘I wonder if Branok’s secret stash has anything to do with Kensa being so certain she and Tegen would be skiing at Christmas.’
Chapter Eleven
They had to eat without Bolingbrooke, who hadn’t come back from the police station.
Oliver muttered that he hoped his father hadn’t caused a row and got himself locked up for the night to think about his position. ‘He’s so cocksure of himself because he has a title. Well, titles don’t count any more.’
‘No, he’s cocksure, as you put it, because he’s innocent. Those are two completely different things.’
‘Well, it might be much the same if LeFevre wants to charge him. That secretary at Haydock’s has sure been pressing for it.’ Oliver moved his fork around in the noodles he had cooked for them. ‘This tastes terrible. I don’t even want this.’ He got up and emptied his plate into the bin in the corner.
‘You do have to eat something,’ Guinevere said.
Oliver waved a hand. ‘I’ll have yoghurt later on. If my father even has some in the house. He’s more of the cheese and wine type.’
‘If he raised you here, how did you grow up to be so different?’
‘Yes, he asked me that countless times. I have no idea really. I don’t even know when I decided I wanted to travel to see animals in the wild. I just did. I guess it’s all in your DNA.’
‘And your older brother?’
‘The complete opposite. A career man, has a wife and children, did everything right the way my father wants it.’
‘I doubt that.’ Guinevere took another bite of noodles and chewed. ‘Your father must have wanted your brother to stay right here, marry a girl who also wanted to live here and raise some heirs for this castle.’ She pushed the plate with noodles away from her. ‘You’re right, this is rather bad.’
Oliver looked her over. ‘We could hit my secret stash.’
‘Your what?’
‘My secret stash. I have food for on the go. Beef in a tin, beans in a tin. Wine in a bag. It’s not haute cuisine but better than this.’
‘If you don’t think it’s too much trouble.’
‘I need to do something or I’ll go insane.’ Oliver left the room and came back with a couple of tins and a bag of wine he handed to her. ‘You pour, my lady, while I see to dinner. I’m used to making this over a campfire so don’t know how I’ll do on gas.’
‘We can move into the yard and make a fire there in one of the braziers.’
He looked at her. ‘Bright idea. You take out some plates and glasses and the wine, while I find a tin opener.’
As Guinevere gathered the items in a cotton bag she had found on a chair, she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about the knife.’
‘What about it?’ Oliver said as he held up a tin opener and then picked out a pan with a thick bottom. ‘In this it shouldn’t burn right away.’
‘Well, someone must have taken the knife along from the room where we all met for the sandwiches before the re-enactment started. But LeFevre told us that your father’s fingerprints were on it.’
‘Of course. He handled it. Cador also handled it when he put all the food in place so maybe LeFevre will think up a way to blame the both of them for having planned and executed it together?’
‘Think about this. If somebody decided to pick up the knife and take it along, he or she would have touched it, right? Shouldn’t there be fingerprints from the killer on the knife?’
‘Must have used a handkerchief or other bit of cloth to pick it up.’ Oliver looked around. ‘I think I’ve got everything. Let’s go outside.’
In the yard he lit one of the braziers and put a grate over it to rest the pan on. He opened the tins and poured the contents into the pan. ‘I hope you’re not too particular about this,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘Some people think my lifestyle is a bit too bohemian even when I’m at home.’
‘No, I love this. In the theatre we improvised like this all the time. Held our sausages from a tin over a tea light to heat them. They always fell in and came out with wax on it you had to scrape off again.’
‘So you’re an easy-going girl?’ Oliver seemed relieved. ‘When Betts recommended you to me, some drama studies graduate from the city, I was worried you’d be a type with an agenda, trying to run the place for us. Trying to change everything here.’
Guinevere hitched a brow. ‘I don’t think you’d let some woman tell you anything. I bet you’d have thought up a way to scare her off.’
‘Put a wet brush in her bed?’ Oliver laughed. ‘Nah, that was my way in the old days when I didn’t want a new nanny to look after me. There was a string of them after Kensa left.’
Guinevere shocked upright. ‘Kensa was your nanny?’
‘Yes. Until I was six or so. To this day I have no idea why it ended. I think my father and she fought over something and … I did like her. She was relaxed. Didn’t mind me dragging in all kinds of animals.’
Dolly walked about the yard exploring. Her shadow on the wall was grotesquely enlarged by the fire’s flickering light.
Guinevere had opened the wine and poured it into the glasses. She handed one to Oliver. ‘There isn’t a reason to propose a toast. With your father in trouble.’
Oliver exhaled. ‘He has been in trouble before and he always gets out of it. Let’s drink to his resilience.’ He held up the glass.
Guinevere touched hers to his. ‘To his resilience. The resilience of the Bolin
gbrookes, who have always lived here.’ She added in the same breath, ‘I talked to Emma when I was getting an ice cream and some postcards at the eatery and she said she saw Jago with Haydock – and Haydock giving him money. A lot of it, if she is to be believed. What can that have been about?’
Oliver looked at her, a frown over his eyes. ‘Jago always acted like he didn’t like Haydock. He even said this afternoon that Haydock deserved to die. Why would he accept his money? And a lot of it too?’
The contents of the pan made a hissing noise, and Oliver put down his glass quickly. He looked around. ‘Spoon, spoon … Yes!’
He leaned over and stirred. ‘Phew! That was close.’
Guinevere said, ‘Emma also mentioned Cornisea has become known as a treasure island.’
Oliver laughed. ‘Oh, yes, when the historical society decided to do the Branok trial re-enactment, somebody wanted to do a whole summer of Branok activities including looking for his secret stash that’s supposed to be hidden in the sand. Money he got out of his illegal activities and had to hide from the authorities and even more from his wife. It seems she didn’t agree with his dealings and would have turned him in if she could. To be rid of him, no doubt.’
‘I see.’ Guinevere remembered the notes in the basket she had coincidentally glimpsed at the B&B, mentioning Branok and treasure. Kensa’s work? Kept from Lord Bolingbrooke? ‘And is there any truth to these rumours of a stash?’
‘I have no idea. I don’t think Father ever bothered to look for anything. So he doesn’t seem to believe in it. But people with the island in their bloodstream might believe and …’
‘So the light on the beach at night could be someone trying to find a treasure?’
‘I think you’re romanticizing it. In these days you could sooner expect kids dealing in drugs.’ Oliver grimaced. ‘I’ve seen the devastation of addiction everywhere I’ve been. Even in supposedly unspoiled areas, people brew alcohol or use plants to have some kind of hallucinations. They all think they’re in control of it, but it’s really controlling them.’
He stared into the pan. ‘People tell me often: oh, you travel to paradise. But as far as I can tell now, there is no such thing as paradise on this earth.’ He looked up at her. ‘Morose, huh?’
‘Or realistic. You can’t tell me that all those other places you have been to are better than this one right here.’
Oliver seemed to start at her words. He studied her with a frown, then he picked up his glass again and took two deep draughts. ‘Dinner is ready. Give me your plate.’
Over the beef with beans they said very little. Guinevere wondered how it was possible that she felt connected to a man she had only met the other day. He was like the crew at the theatre, people she fell in with easily because they were like her: outsiders, people who didn’t belong anywhere and who had to bond to have a place to belong.
Who wrote their own story on the go, and hopefully even their own happy ending.
But what happy ending could be expected here with Bolingbrooke at the police station in a murder case in which they could not prove anything, except for the key on his person and the knife with his fingerprints and the motive he’d had?
She chewed on a last bite of beef and stared into the flames of the brazier.
Then her phone beeped in her pocket. She pulled it out.
Oliver made a soft sound in the back of his throat. ‘That your mobile phone? How old is it?’
Guinevere gave him an angry look and answered the call.
‘LeFevre here. Is Lord Bolingbrooke with you?’
‘No.’ Guinevere glanced at Oliver. ‘We thought he was still with you.’
‘He escaped.’
‘Escaped? Was he locked up then?’
Oliver had perked up at the word ‘escaped’ and was eyeing her with a worried frown.
LeFevre said, ‘No, not really. I … I left him in the interrogation room to check on some leads he had given me during our conversation. He got some coughing fit, and the officer with him left to get him a glass of water. When he came back, Lord Bolingbrooke was gone.’
Guinevere bit her lip. ‘What about Lord Bolingbrooke’s lawyer? Wasn’t he with him?’
‘No, he sent the lawyer off before the interrogation even started. He was livid that Oliver had arranged for one. He ran from here all alone.’
Guinevere winced at the word ‘ran’. Was Lord Bolingbrooke now officially fleeing from justice? ‘And then?’
‘Well, I’m not starting a manhunt if that’s what you mean. He emphatically denies being the killer. All evidence points to him, but …’
‘You have doubts?’ Guinevere asked, clinging to a ray of hope.
‘Take this. Since you were so insistent on wanting to know what that plant material was that we found in the cage, I put a little pressure on the lab to come up with the results.’
‘Yes?’ Guinevere tapped her foot on the stone impatiently. Oliver was watching her with a tense expression.
LeFevre said, ‘It’s rhododendron. It got torn from a bush, apparently with some force, and it was also squashed against something.’
‘Probably when somebody stood on it,’ Guinevere said. ‘Maybe it was underneath Haydock’s boots after all?’
‘No, the lab checked what was under his boots, and there was no trace of rhododendron in that.’ LeFevre seemed to rummage through paperwork as she could hear pages turning over. ‘Now there’s rhododendron growing right outside that air hole. The bit in the cage was quite fresh so it didn’t get there during a storm or something, some time back. No, it landed there quite recently.’
‘Possibly at the time of the murder,’ Guinevere said.
‘Possibly.’ LeFevre tapped on something. ‘But what does it signify? I’ve already told you that the stab wound doesn’t support the assumption that the killing happened at the air hole with the killer pushing his or her hand with the knife through that hole. So we can’t take the rhododendron as proof that an arm with knife was indeed thrust through the hole. I also don’t quite see how that movement would get rhododendron inside the cage. You?’
‘No,’ Guinevere had to admit.
‘Well, anyway, there you go. That rhododendron makes me doubt Lord Bolingbrooke’s guilt. But I can hardly tell that to the papers or to the concerned citizens who are clamouring for arrest. They’d think I’m crazy. I need him back here at the station. But he isn’t with you?’
‘No, honestly not. We were worried where he might be.’
‘Let me know as soon as he arrives.’ And LeFevre disconnected.
Guinevere stared at the phone in her hand. ‘Your father managed to get out of the interrogation room and leave the station.’
‘He’s on the run?’ Oliver’s eyes were wide. ‘How stupid of him. People will take it as an admission of guilt.’
He got up and paced the yard, then said he wanted to climb up to the battlements for a look around.
Guinevere knew he was going to look for a sign that his father was on his way over to the keep.
She herself was cold as she sat there with Dolly at her feet. The dachshund was very quiet as if she sensed the tension in the air, the feeling something serious was about to happen. ‘What do you think, girl? Why did he run away? Just because he felt misunderstood and threatened?’
She reached down and fondled the dog’s ears. ‘He should have stayed there. He was safe there.’
Oliver had said earlier that if the sale of the castle were to succeed, his father should be the one to die.
What if someone spotted him and came for him to hurt him?
It didn’t make sense at all, but Guinevere just couldn’t shake the feeling that Bolingbrooke’s disappearance meant bad news.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning when Guinevere came down from the tower, she spotted Oliver standing in the corridor, talking to someone in his father’s study. ‘You just show up here like nothing happened. You’re working on your dusty old books again and you
refuse to tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve done. You were away all night! You could have called to let me know where you were.’
‘So you could turn me in to the police? First thing you say when I see your face is that they’re looking for me. Like I don’t know that myself!’
Oliver wanted to say something, then heard Guinevere coming. He looked at her. ‘Our runaway has shown up again. He’s having coffee with biscuits like nothing happened. He’s even making plans for the book cataloguing.’
‘Then I’d better get in there,’ Guinevere said. She realized that making a fuss as well wasn’t going to work with Bolingbrooke, who obviously had his own way of dealing with the current trouble in his life.
She put on her brightest smile and entered the study. The table was strewn with new material. In front of the fireplace Nero was snoozing, his large head on his paws. Rufus stood at a bench full of books, nuzzling them as if he wanted to have a read.
Bolingbrooke waved a half-eaten biscuit at her. ‘Good morning. Slept well?’
Not really with you missing, Guinevere wanted to say, but she said instead, ‘Of course. Your beds are so comfy.’
‘That’s the nicest thing a guest has ever said to me.’ Bolingbrooke gestured at a tray with a coffee pot, a few cups, and a plate laden with biscuits. ‘Help yourself. If you need a more substantial breakfast, I’m sure there’s a banana somewhere under those books. No, I think it’s in that chair. Or was it in the windowsill? Well, you can find it. It’s bright yellow after all.’
Oliver’s voice resounded from the corridor, ‘Just pretend like nothing’s wrong. But you’ll have to face this before you’re in prison.’
Bolingbrooke said to Guinevere, ‘He used to do that as a kid, you know, yell at me from the corridor. Calling me names and daring me to show my face for a duel. Not much has changed, it seems. But I’ve become too old to fall for his antics. And we have work to do. So many books to catalogue. Now I have cards there …’
‘You want to do it with cards? Not on a computer?’
Oliver’s voice resounded. ‘I told him it’s much easier with a computer because then you have so many search options but he refuses to listen.’
Death Plays a Part (Cornish Castle Mystery, Book 1) Page 13
