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

by Vivian Conroy

  It had all been a conscious act. Every part of it well thought out and well executed.

  ‘An excellent performance,’ Guinevere said softly. ‘We all believed her.’

  Dolly pressed herself to Guinevere’s leg and whined.

  ‘Yes, girl,’ Guinevere said. ‘I know. Oliver still believes in her.’ Her stomach shrank thinking of him. His behaviour at The Bull and Crow had betrayed he was protective of Leah. He believed her to be an innocent victim of her father’s conniving. He had said to Leah she could start a new life now and he would support her. He had smiled at her with the tenderness of an old friend. Even more?

  Would he believe that Leah could be the killer?

  That Leah had set it up so his father would be accused and convicted?

  That Leah had even used Oliver himself to this end, leaving the email correspondence in plain sight at the office, for LeFevre to find?

  What if Oliver didn’t believe her and didn’t want to help her get Leah arrested?

  Guinevere said to Dolly, ‘We can’t take chances. We need to be absolutely sure before we can accuse her.’

  Her mouth dry, Guinevere took out her phone. It felt cold in her clammy palm. She took a deep breath and called LeFevre. ‘Please don’t give that boathook back to Jago just yet. Have it analysed. How the wood got chafed off, if you can connect it to the stone sill of the air hole of the cage in which Haydock died, and if the greenish smudge is from rhododendron. Also if there are any fingerprints on the boathook. Or other DNA. It could be vital to solving the murder.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ LeFevre said in a puzzled tone.

  ‘It was used through the air hole to topple the chair, Haydock on it was already dead then.’ Her certainty grew as she put it into words. ‘When Bolingbrooke locked him in, he was already dead. For all this time we’ve been deceived as to the way it was actually done. Please hurry with the analysis. It can’t wait.’

  She disconnected. Her mind swam.

  This was it.

  She had actually solved it.

  In time! LeFevre would not arrest Bolingbrooke at ten the next morning. No. He would arrest Leah.

  Tonight.

  Where was Oliver? He had to take her out to the mainland. They had to talk to LeFevre in person. Persuade him to go see Leah with them, right away. She probably felt safe and didn’t think of fleeing, but on the other hand Guinevere didn’t want to run any risk with someone who had proven herself to be such a clever manipulator of other people.

  She ran down the stairs, Dolly hard on her heels. She asked Bolingbrooke where Oliver was.

  ‘He went out to do some digging, it seems.’ Bolingbrooke waved a hand. ‘He’ll be back.’

  ‘This can’t wait.’ Guinevere ran away again. Because it was already getting dark, she decided to leave Dolly at the castle. The dog might run away from her in the twilight and it would be difficult to take her along to the police station and Leah’s home as well.

  ‘Sorry, girl,’ she said as she slipped through the door and closed it before the inquisitive dachshund’s nose could push through. She could hear the indignant yapping as she rushed away. It was as if Dolly was trying to tell her she needed her. That it might be stupid to do this alone.

  Oliver had to be at the same spot he had been earlier, investigating the rocks. Of course Jago’s words had goaded him to look for some spectacular find himself. To make things better with his father and prove to the old fisherman that he did care for Cornisea.

  Guinevere’s stomach knotted again at the idea she had to suggest to him that Leah was the killer. Oliver wouldn’t want to see her locked up and charged. He still believed her to be the awkward girl he had known before he had left Cornisea. The girl who didn’t want to eat a pasty because it reminded her of not fitting in.

  As Guinevere closed in on the spot where Oliver had been digging that morning, she didn’t hear the sound of scraping.

  She just seemed to hear a low whisper.

  Voices? Talking?

  Was Jago there as well? Had he come to help Oliver?

  Guinevere came round the bend and halted abruptly.

  Leah was there, standing opposite Oliver. Oliver had brought a torch he could put on the ground, which illuminated the scene. Guinevere registered that it looked hard-wearing and concluded Oliver must use it on his travels. In the bright light Leah’s face was warm and alive, her eyes sparkling like she had drunk too much wine. Her loose hair danced on the wind that breathed from the water.

  Guinevere registered all these little details in a glance as ice filled the pit of her stomach. Her first impulse was to turn and run, to reach a safe distance to call LeFevre and ask him to come out here, at once. The pier was near where he could moor his boat and dash in to arrest Leah.

  But LeFevre might not believe that Leah was guilty before he had the results from the boathook analysis. He had earlier rejected the possibility Leah could have killed her own father.

  And this situation might be perfect to lure Leah into betraying her guilt in front of Oliver. That might be the only way to convince him she had done it.

  Leah and Oliver hadn’t spotted her yet, and Oliver said, ‘I don’t understand, Leah. I thought you had only found out about your father’s plans to have my father declared incapable of managing Cornisea on the morning after he died. Now it sounds like you already knew before.’

  See. Guinevere’s blood droned in her ears. Leah had planned it all, well in advance. Cold-blooded, efficient.

  She was dangerous.

  And she was so close to Oliver. What did she want from him?

  ‘That’s not the point.’ Leah grabbed Oliver’s hand that was resting on the grip of his spade. Her voice was low and pleading. ‘Your father knew what my father was up to. Don’t you see? He had to kill him. It was the only way out.’

  ‘I won’t accept my father killed someone. Yes, he was angry, but he wouldn’t just …’

  ‘I’m a lawyer,’ Leah said with emphasis. ‘I know these things. You need to convince your father to confess, to plead that he acted in self-defence because my father attacked him with the knife first. You said yourself that it was more logical that my father wanted your father dead than the other way around. If he can claim self-defence or even that he lost his senses and can’t remember what he did, he’ll get a lighter sentence. He’s an old man, he might even be released earlier, if he shows good behaviour.’

  ‘I can’t convince him to confess something he claims he didn’t do.’ Oliver leaned closer. ‘Leah, I know this is a terrible time for you. I know that it must be even worse because it’s my father who got accused of it. But you have to accept I believe in his innocence.’

  ‘Do you also believe in me?’ Leah looked him in the eye. ‘Do you believe I can go back to singing and build a career out of it?’

  Guinevere held her breath. What was Leah up to? Why had she come to Cornisea and searched out Oliver?

  Oliver said, ‘Yes, of course. You were always talented. It was just your father keeping you from it.’

  ‘Yes. So if I could sell the law firm, we could travel the world together. You’ll make documentaries, and I’ll perform at large opera houses. Australia, Asia. The world could be ours.’

  ‘I do want to help you get on your way,’ Oliver said. ‘But my travels take me into the outback, not to cities.’

  ‘You would come and listen to me, wouldn’t you? You would sit in the front row. I need some friendly face around to encourage me. Please, Oliver. Like it was in the old days.’

  Oliver looked her over. He sighed as if he was very tired. ‘Things change, Leah. I have obligations now. Not just my career but … my father here, the castle, the island.’

  ‘You never cared for those. You never wanted to come here. If your father gets convicted, the castle can be sold off. You will be free. That’s what you wanted, right?’

  ‘I don’t want my father in jail and I certainly don’t want to see the castle fall into the wrong hands.�
� Oliver’s tone was indignant. ‘It seems everybody is thinking the worst of me. First Jago, now you.’

  ‘Jago is just a thief. My father told me the ring came from here. I see that you know too, or you wouldn’t be looking for more yourself.’ Leah shoved Oliver’s hand aside and took a hold of the spade’s grip. She leaned so close that the rising wind brushed her loose blonde hair against Oliver’s face. ‘Shall I help you? Shall we look for a treasure together?’

  Time seemed to stretch as they stood, their faces but inches away from each other, Leah’s full of warmth and tenderness, Oliver’s tense and undecided.

  Guinevere’s heart beat in a monotone drone: what if he kisses her, what if he says he loves her, how can I prove her guilty if …

  Oliver said in a gentle but determined tone, ‘I’m not sure there’s anything here. And I’d rather be alone now.’

  The expectancy in Leah’s features died like the last sunlight in an evening sky, suddenly turning everything grey and chill. Her hands grabbed the spade underneath the grip and raised it to lash out at Oliver. He moved away instinctively, but still the grip hit him on the side of the head, and he sank to the ground. ‘What?’ he stammered.

  Guinevere inched back, her breathing ragged. Her gaze was glued to Oliver’s face, to the blood that began to ooze from a wound near his eye.

  Deadly pale, her eyes narrowed, Leah held the spade over her head for the next blow. ‘You only get one choice,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘That’s what my father always told me. One choice, one chance. He ruined his, and now you’ve ruined yours. You never wanted Cornisea, but now that you can get rid of it, at last, and be with me, you ruin it. You chose this stupid rock over me.’

  ‘Leave him alone.’ Guinevere stepped forward. Her voice was slightly breathless, but she managed to sound strong. She was too far away for Leah to strike at her, but she knew the woman might throw the spade or do something else, and every muscle in her body was tight. Her mind whirled to find a way out of this, for Oliver and her. ‘Oliver did nothing to hurt you.’

  ‘Didn’t he? He just refused to come with me. I did all of this for him too, you know. For the both of us.’

  ‘Us?’ Oliver felt gingerly for the wound on his head. He stared in disbelief at the blood that stained his fingertips.

  Before he could say something to provoke Leah into hitting him with the spade again, Guinevere said, ‘You killed your father. I worked it all out. You killed him when you were down in the dungeon with him to give him the robe. You had brought the knife from the table in the upstairs room, bundled up in the robe. You had been to rehearsals before, you knew there would be food offered, and there would be a knife available. You took it and you stabbed him when the two of you were together. If he cried out, the thick walls drowned out the sound of his voice.’

  There was a short flicker in Leah’s eyes, some sort of response to what she was hearing.

  Guinevere pushed on. The light from Oliver’s torch was on her like a spotlight on a stage, illuminating this final act. ‘You left your father already dead when you walked out of the cage. You made it look like he was still alive later to frame Lord Bolingbrooke. You knew the two didn’t like each other and that Lord Bolingbrooke wouldn’t go inside the cage. That he would just lock the door, staying outside. You produced that one affirmative sound when Lord Bolingbrooke asked if your father was all right. So he would testify to the police later that your father was still alive when he locked the cage’s door on him. You wanted Lord Bolingbrooke to be locked up so the castle would be sold and Oliver would be free. To travel the world with you.’

  ‘You must be crazy,’ Oliver muttered, trying to sit up but sinking back with a groan. Blood seeped down his cheek, and he seemed disorientated.

  Leah snarled. ‘She’s telling it all the wrong way. That you would be free was a bonus. It wasn’t my main reason. Not at all. It had nothing to do with you. It had everything to do with him. My father.’

  Her voice was tinged with hatred. ‘The man I worshipped. For whom I sacrificed everything. To be what he had always wanted. A son, an heir, someone to take over the firm. I gave up everything I wanted, I believed in, for him. To have him love me, see me. But did he acknowledge that? No. He betrayed me.’

  Leah’s voice took on a desperate edge. She kept her eyes on Oliver, as if Guinevere wasn’t even there. ‘I had discovered he was making changes to the firm. I didn’t understand why. So I asked him and he said that it was none of my business. But that it was better if I got used to working with a new partner. Someone he would bring into the firm. Maybe I would even have to work under this new partner and take orders from him. From someone who had never for a day worked in the firm. Who hadn’t earned his degree.’

  ‘Who then?’ Oliver asked in bewilderment. ‘Why on earth would your father do that?’

  ‘I didn’t understand either. And the morning of the re-enactment, I begged him to tell me. To explain. Then he told me. That he had always had an affair going on with Kensa. For as long as he had been married to my mother. That Kensa had given him what my mother could not. A son.’

  Oliver blinked. ‘Kensa’s eldest is …’

  ‘My half brother, yes.’ Leah’s eyes were dark holes in her face. ‘Kensa was already pregnant when she married her husband. She duped him, the poor sod. She pretended to be devoted to him, accepting his parents’ B&B to work at, but it was always my father she wanted. After her husband died, they could meet more often, through the historical society. She had never told him that Lance was his. It was so obvious when you think about it. She called him Lance, not a Cornish name. But English, like my father’s. Arthur and Lance or Lancelot. Taken from the same wretched tale. Kensa was a fan of legends and fairy tales, you know.

  ‘She actually believed she could become my father’s new wife. A woman who didn’t have to work in a B&B any more, cleaning fish and scrubbing bath tubs. It would never have worked though. If it hadn’t been for her ace in the hole. The son my father had always wanted.’

  Oliver asked, ‘Why would your father have believed that Lance was his son? There is no likeness at all between them.’

  ‘He had a DNA test done.’ Leah’s hands clenched the spade. ‘Once it was certain, he was dead set on bringing him into the firm. Of course Lance said yes. Why not? He did have to get a legal degree for it, but it was an easy way into money for him. He never wanted to do anything with his life; he had no plans of his own. I sacrificed all my dreams for the firm, and my father just wanted to pull in this loser, this lazy bum who had never accomplished anything. Just because he was male!’

  Leah gasped for breath. ‘Kensa was against it. She fought him tooth and nail over it. She didn’t want Lance in the firm at all. But my father told me he didn’t care for her opinion. He never cared for anybody’s opinion. Especially women. They were worth nothing to his mind. Only to dominate and then abandon.’

  Leah gripped the spade with white-knuckled hands. ‘He told me that he was taking his son into the firm. No matter what my mother would think of it. I was out of my mind. I knew that he had contacted you to have your father declared incapable of running the castle. I thought I could use that as a motive for murder. That I could kill him during the trial re-enactment. It would be so fitting. Conviction and execution all in one.’

  ‘Leah …’ Oliver whispered, wiping at his face. Blood smudged his pale shocked features.

  ‘He deserved it!’ Leah screeched. ‘In the cage he stretched out his hand and took of his wedding ring. He said, “This means nothing to me. This does.” He put that Branok ring on. That thing Jago got for him. “I’m Branok now,” he said. “I own this island; it will all be mine. You have no idea what I plan.”’

  Leah swallowed. ‘He even reached for me and said I could be part of it as long as I did what he wanted, that he needed supporters. You think I wanted that? My mother humiliated and talk all over the region? A son in the firm in my place? I could just kill him. And I did. I had the knife o
n me. I had taken it out of the dining room wrapped in a napkin inside the robe. Nobody saw me carrying it. I didn’t leave prints on it either. I had thought it all up before that night. I gave him the robe, I watched as he dressed and sat down. I knew the floor was uneven and the chair would be easy to topple later on. I stabbed him and I’ll never again feel as happy as I did when I saw the light in his arrogant eyes go out. He – a ruler? Aconqueror like Branok? Shrewd? No, stupid. And only mortal. One little stab, and he was gone.’

  Oliver stared up at Leah in disbelief. His eyes were full of pity for her, and denial that this could actually be happening. He didn’t seem to realize that Leah had gone so far already there was no turning back. That after her confession she would have to kill them both to get away from here.

  Guinevere knew she could try to run. To make it to the castle ahead of Leah.

  But she also knew she couldn’t leave Oliver alone with Leah. He would hesitate to get physical against her as he still didn’t fully grasp how dangerous she was. In his mind she was still a little girl who needed his protection. A victim, instead of the culprit.

  Leah said, ‘Then I had to be quick. I ran out. The boathook from Jago’s boat was already waiting for me in the brush along the path. I had put it there when my father and I arrived. He went up to the castle ahead of me. I put the boathook in place along the route I’d take to the air hole.’

  Guinevere remembered how Leah had panted for breath when she had come into the castle and had met them in the hallway.

  Leah said, ‘I knew Jago was on the island, you know, searching again while everybody was at the castle for the trial re-enactment. I knew his boat would be there when we arrived and I could use the boathook. I waited at the air hole. I called out to Lord Bolingbrooke as he came to lock my father in. So he would believe my father had still been alive at that time. His own testimony would seal his fate.

  ‘Then after he had left, I used the boathook to topple the chair. It wasn’t easy but it worked. I wanted to take the boathook back to Jago’s boat at the pier but there was no time. I couldn’t come in panting, so I had to have a few moments to catch my breath. I left the boathook in the bushes further down the path. Eal would never have understood it meant anything. I did it all perfectly.’