Edith thought of the wads of cash Sunny had shown her the day before. Dad had plenty of beer money. And what about the fifteen grand that Sam hadn’t even hesitated to pay her for a week’s work? Three and a half thousand pounds would motivate to murder unless they were destitute and desperate. That description didn’t fit the Faircotes.
There was the second lead. The other theory. She guessed her father would be dismissive. There was still no solid evidence for it.
“Well, I took a trip to the College of Arms. It was quite interesting.” She rattled off the bare facts to avoid being interrupted. “Samuel is a baron, so it seems. They identified his shield as that of an ancient barony. It turns out that he’s the twenty–second Baron Sisel.”
“Swish.” Ben clucked his tongue. “But what’s that got to do with anything?”
“My theory is that there’s a rival claimant somewhere, killing members of the family so he can get the peerage.”
“Like Kind Hearts and Coronets?” Ben laughed.
“What?”
“Never mind, before your time. Before mine really.” Ben sighed. “But surely he would have killed Samuel some time ago? What’s the point of killing the more distant relatives while leaving the actual baron still alive?”
“That’s the thing,” Edith gladdened. Her theory had been refined while lying in bed that morning, “killing a baron would get a lot of publicity. The baronage would then pass to the nearest male relative, who you would have to kill in turn. And on and on, baron after baron, every time getting more and more attention. But if you kill the intermediates then nobody pays as much attention, until there are no male heirs between you and the current baron.
“You then only have to knock off a single baron, generate a bit of publicity, and that’s it, the title is yours. The best part of it is that the new heir is such a distant relative it looks like pure chance you’re the last one surviving. You get to act all surprised, say you never knew a thing about it, while everybody congratulates you one becoming the twenty–third Baron Sisel.”
“Maybe.” Ben sulked. It was a better theory than she thought. It was at least possible, if only tenuously plausible. He wasn’t willing to concede any of that. “Sounds a bit bloody Sherlock Holmes to me. He was always naffing around with heirs and heiresses. A bit like Hound of the Baskervilles, isn’t it?”
Edith ignored her father’s objection. “Well, here’s the thing. The Faircote pedigree is missing from the College of Arms, which is pretty suspicious, so I’m going to keep looking into it. They sent me the contact details of a researcher for ancient baronies who happens to live up in the Peak. I’m going to ask him to help me figure out the family tree so I can identify possible suspects.”
Ben yawned. “Anything else? Any other theories? Ones that might be remotely bloody likely?”
Edith frowned. She had come up with two theories in as many days. She didn’t know how she could have done better.
“No? Well then, I should think you have your work cut out for you tomorrow.”
Day 11: Saturday 11 November
Andrius thundered down the country drive in his Mercedes. Tatton Hall could be glimpsed in the distance between the trees. The road ahead was gloriously clear. The plebs had been forced through the side gate for the day, while the main gate was the sole preserve of the wedding guests. Andrius managed to reach eighty before slowing for a bend in the drive. He stole a look at his passenger.
Edith sat impassively, staring out at the perfect scenery of the park. Half her mind wanted to tell Andrius to slow down. The other half to go faster. At university he had owned a Japanese import car with a name she couldn’t remember and hardly mattered. They would drive out onto the M62 late at night, hit a hundred and twenty, then Andrius will kill the lights. The thrill would run through her body, building up the tension, needing to be released. They would pull off the motorway, anywhere, it didn’t matter, and fuck immediately.
Sometimes Edith didn’t know why she liked Andrius, at other times it was obvious. He was wild, he was alive. He had the money not to buy things—she didn’t care that much about things—but simply to live. He ate wherever he wanted without a reservation. He flew away to New York or Singapore at the drop of a hat. He had bought a flat in Number 1 Deansgate, one of the most expensive in the city, just so he could lord it over those below while he fucked his latest girlfriend. Those girlfriends meant nothing to him, Edith knew that, and their existence never bothered her. They were simply things he did to live. Yet they gave her an excuse not to commit, and her refusal to commit gave Andrius an excuse to sleep with whomever he wanted.
Edith didn’t fear commitment. She feared that Andrius only wanted her because he couldn’t have her. Maybe Sunny was right and Andrius wanted a possession. Edith had to avoid being possessed. If she ever agreed to be his wife he would install her in some fantasy house and then...what? Have his children? Make him happy? What if she failed? Once she was his she would be less desirable. Edith had managed to maintain his desire for five years by being ambiguous. Neither unavailable nor taken for granted. She didn’t know how it might end.
Andrius suddenly slowed. “What is this?”
A marshal up ahead flagged down the car. Another stood nearby, guiding people away from the hall, massaging their disappointment that it was not open to visitors. Andrius stopped the car.
“Edith Pimlico and guest. For the wedding.” Andrius was almost hurt that the words ‘and guest’ reduced him to anonymity. It was usually the other way round.
The marshal scanned his clipboard and waved them through a set of iron gates. The courtyard was already stuffed with cars. Edith thought she heard Andrius sigh after they had driven past at least three more Mercedes. New ones, top of the list. It wasn’t good for him to feel average. Had he known he would have brought his Aston Martin.
He eventually tucked his car in next to a Ford and smiled at the small victory.
From the courtyard the hall appeared decidedly underwhelming. Only two stories tall and plainly built. Edith knew that the view from the south, where a huge portico opened up to gardens cascading down a slope, was far more impressive. The entrance on the north was tiny in comparison, a pedimented canopy which would hardly keep visitors dry. A doorman bowed shallowly at their approach and welcomed them through the door.
Inside the hall flowers and ivory swags decorated the way to Lord Egerton’s apartment where the ceremony would be held. The doorman gently pointed in the opposite direction. The ceremony was strictly close family only, and soon to be underway. A long decorated corridor led them through the hall until they emerged at the Tenant’s Hall.
The hall was draped from ceiling to floor in soft ivory cloth. Tables set for three hundred guests filled the space. A few people milled around aimlessly, either chatting in small groups or taking advantage of a lone waiter serving drinks to the unfashionably early.
“This can’t be all the guests.” Edith quickly counted fewer than fifty people.
“No, but they won’t be arriving late. Not to a wedding.” Andrius sounded genuinely shocked at the idea. “They had better get here soon.”
“Maybe it’s to our advantage. We can speak to everybody here, then catch others as they come. Let’s split up,” Edith suggested, “and talk to people separately, then we can get as much info as we can.”
“Like spies.” Andrius smirked.
“Remember, we want to talk to people who have known the Faircote family a long time. Recent friends, and those who are friends of the bride, hold no interest. They must have known the family since the eighties to have any real background.” She wagged a finger. “Unless, of course, they are Faircotes themselves, in which case they may know something useful however old they are.”
“Okay.”
Andrius quickly lifted a glass of wine from the waiter’s tray and hustled into a small group nearby. When a break in the conversation arose he seized his chance.
“Please forgive me my brazenness, but yo
u don’t mind if I join you? It’s bad enough to be early to this kind of thing, let alone drinking alone.” He held up his wine glass and took a sip. After a polite chorus of welcomes, he continued. “I’m afraid that I will not know anybody here. I think I am the only businessman Samuel invited.”
“Oh,” a tiny ancient woman took the bait, “you do business with Samuel?”
“Yes, my company has done a lot of business with...,” Andrius rolled his eyes backward, trying to remember the name of the family company, “Faircote Paints. But I hardly know Samuel at all personally. Do you know him well?”
The woman opened her mouth half way to answer. A young man in a red suit to her left spoke out of turn. “Are you from Estonia? I recognise the accent. I went there this summer with some lads from work. Riga’s a lovely city. Didn’t see much of it though.”
“Well,” Andrius drew out the first word of his reply, stunned by the brightness of the man’s suit. He could correct the man, tell him that Riga was in Latvia. Instead he repeated his well–practised introduction, “I’m from Lithuania originally, from a city called Kaunas. I came to England seven years ago to attend university...”
“Seven years!” The old dear took the conversation back from the red suit. “How are you finding life in England? Don’t you miss home?”
“Well, I...” Andrius never got any further with his questions. His newfound friends bombarded him with trite enquiries about life as a foreigner.
Unaware of Andrius’s failure, Edith surveyed the room for people who were awkward and desperate for company, and who might have something useful to say. A middle–aged couple, old enough to have known the family for years made a lonely pair, standing in silence. The woman was overdressed and doing a good impression of the bride’s mother with a unnecessarily large hat. The bald and spreading man, presumably her husband, lowered the overall impression with a suit which fitted him perfectly twenty years ago.
“Isn’t is lovely to have their reception in such a wonderful hall!” Edith opened blandly.
“Oh, it is delightful, isn’t it? Mike and I couldn’t afford anything better than the local pub. Could we?” The woman was so sure her husband agreed that she didn’t bother looking at him.
“No. No, we couldn’t. But you make the best of it when you’re young.” The man threw in his resigned agreement. Thirty years of wedlock was not enough for his wife’s loyalty. A little bit of money would not have gone amiss.
“My name is Edith, I’m a friend of Sam.” Edith held out her hand, confident that ‘friend’ was vague enough a description to wriggle out of if the couple turned out to be friends too.
“Jacky. And this is Steve, my husband. We’re Sarah’s neighbours. Well, her parents’ neighbours. We’ve known her since she was a baby. We used to look after her all the time when she was younger. She was sweet enough to invite us to her wedding.” The woman gazed round the hall in acknowledgement that she knew precisely nobody while Sarah and her parents were at the ceremony.
“It must be delightful to see the little girl all grown up!” Edith smiled intensely but the interest was gone. Jacky and Steve knew nothing and every minute spent talking to them was another minute lost.
“Oh, she’s done well for herself, that’s for sure!” Jacky dipped her head as she grinned, then blushed as she remembered that Edith was Samuel’s friend.
The conversation lasted another couple of pleasant minutes before Edith escaped with a platitude about mingling. More and more people were entering the hall and she wafted up to groups here and there looking for an entry.
“You look suited up enough to be married today yourselves, never mind Samuel.” Edith joked to a handful of men in their early thirties.
“Well, if Sammy backs out I’ll be glad to be his stand–in!” One man replied and the others roared with laughter.
“Are you friends of Sam, then?” Edith put her weight on one leg and stuck out her hip as much as she could. She had no illusions that she was the sexiest woman alive. It might help. They must have been drinking already, she was sure of it, and no subtlety was needed.
One of the men began pointing along the group. “Me, Rick, and Matt go all the way back to university,” Edith’s heart sank a little at another mishit, “but Paul has known him since childhood.”
“I know all his dirty secrets,” Paul added, “these lot just know his drunken ones!” The men roared with laughter again.
Edith smiled and giggled at Paul’s joke, latching her eyes on him as her new target. She kept up with their banter for a couple of minutes while moving slowly nearer to Paul. As Rick told a long story about Sam during his university days, Edith made her strike in an aside to Paul. “I’m surprised you’re not at the ceremony.”
“Oh, it’s strictly just close family. Apart from Hugh, of course. Not even a best man.” Paul shrugged and gave Edith a look over so obvious it could be seen from space.
“Was Sam your best man?” Edith smiled innocently and read from Paul’s face, and his left hand, that he wasn’t married. She shrugged and gulped the last of her wine. “I need to get another drink.”
“Here, let me help you.” Paul stepped over to a nearby waiter and grabbed them each a new drink. “You never said how you know Sam?”
“I’m an old friend of Sarah’s,” Edith smiled inside as an evil thought crossed her mind, “we grew up next door to one another. She invited me and my parents for old time’s sake.” Edith nodded vaguely in the direction of Jacky and Steve, to complete to pretence of being their daughter.
“Gosh, two beautiful women growing up right next door to one another!” Edith smiled and then bit her bottom lip. Normally she would have walked away by this point.
“This place is so lovely, isn’t it? I wonder how they managed to get it.” Edith slowly swept her gaze around the hall. “I suppose that is one of the benefits of being married in the off–season. November is so late for a wedding.”
“I should think it is one of the benefits of having money.” Paul smiled and took a sip of his drink coolly, as though acknowledging to Edith that he might not be short of a few quid. “Of course, they planned an August wedding, but what with the...” He trailed off.
“I heard, yes, I remember now.” Edith delivered her ignorance deliberately and slowly. “It must have been a terrible shock to the family. I can understand why the wedding was postponed. Though I can’t say I was privy to the details.”
“It was a cousin. Met him once or twice in my teens. Supposedly he had turned alcoholic but kept it under wraps.” Paul looked over his shoulder and hushed his voice. “Damn well drove his car off a cliff.”
“Horrific.” Edith shook her head. Paul knew about the young Thomas Faircote’s death, as all the guests would, but nothing more than the newspapers had printed. It wasn’t worth asking about the older Thomas.. Though he could her guide to the family. Even if he only pointed out various relatives it would be enough for her to build on.
A murmur rose in the hall. Edith turned and saw that, not only had the hall filled considerably, a crowd was bustling toward the doors at the far end. She swung back to Paul only to find him swept away by his mates who had begun to cheer. The crowd parted to reveal Sam entering with his new wife, Sarah. They held hands and beamed at one another as they basked in the barrage of camera flashes.
Sarah was near enough the most beautiful person Edith had seen in the flesh. Plenty of pretty women were on telly and in magazines, but Sarah was right there in front of Edith, perfect and radiant. Now Lady Sisel too, she added. A pang of jealousy swept through her.
A hand grabbed her upper arm. She span her head round to find Andrius at her side and smilingly devilishly.
“Money,” he whispered into her ear and shrugged a single shoulder, “more of it than I have. Possibly.”
Edith frowned and cursed him under her breath. Sam was handsome enough. Maybe some women would find him more attractive than Andrius. Money might be a plus, but that was Andrius’s point. He
implied women were shameless enough to chase it. They didn’t love men, only what men and their money could do for them. Edith knew Andrius didn’t quite believe that. Yet it was a poor reflection on him that he would even repeat such an idea.
It was also an unspoken warning. He could find a new woman any time wanted. Maybe he hadn’t intended such a meaning, but it was there. Edith shouldn’t take him granted but instead be thankful that he was interested at all. She seethed at the thought. Every time she had cooled on the relationship over the last five years it was him who desperately courted her affections afresh.
Before she could match her thoughts with word waiters began seating guests for the reception meal. Edith and Andrius were ushered to a table at the far corner of the hall. It was filled with six others who hardly had time to introduce themselves before the speeches started.
Together they strained their ears for a half hour of speeches none could hear, responding to jokes and toasts a second or two after everybody else. Edith could see Samuel as he stood to speak, though heard nothing of his few words. Hugh Mountgrace also stood, maybe for five minutes in total, but he might as well have been delivering a lecture on medieval law codes for all she could hear. When the last speech had finished with a final toast, Edith sighed. Andrius cheered loudly, obnoxiously even, as though he had heard the whole lot and agreed with all his heart.
Throughout the meal Edith probed her tablemates and found them to be the fag end of the guest list. At best they had only the vaguest connection to the happy couple, invited more for the sake of some relationship—business, social—than out of any real love. With no links to other guests they were plonked together without further thought.
A copper–haired woman with the most immaculate make–up was the regular dog groomer for Sarah’s beloved pugs and had been carelessly given an invite after a particularly successful nail–clipping session. She was pleasant enough but, given her presence was caused by a dog, thought it reasonable to mention said dog every time she opened her mouth.
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