The Dead of Winter

by Jane A. Adams

  Recent Titles by Jane A. Adams from Severn House

  The Naomi Blake Mysteries

  MOURNING THE LITTLE DEAD

  TOUCHING THE DARK

  HEATWAVE

  KILLING A STRANGER

  LEGACY OF LIES

  The Rina Martin Mysteries

  A REASON TO KILL

  FRAGILE LIVES

  THE POWER OF ONE

  RESOLUTIONS

  THE DEAD OF WINTER

  THE DEAD OF WINTER

  A Rina Martin Novel

  Jane A. Adams

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2011

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Adams, Jane, 1960-

  The dead of winter. -- (A Rina Martin mystery)

  1. Martin, Rina (Fictitious character)--Fiction.

  2. McGregor, Sebastian (Fictitious character)--Fiction.

  3. Retired women--Fiction. 4. Blizzards--Fiction.

  5. Murder--Investigation--Fiction. 6. Detective and

  mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9′2-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-070-8 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8034-5 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-352-6 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘They’ve sent you, have they? Well, I’m not about to change my mind, so you may as well go and tell them that.’

  ‘I already have. I said you’d be leaving. That there was nothing more anyone could do about it.’

  ‘Right then.’ He sounded a little deflated, as though he had expected a little more fuss and his leaving to cause more consternation. ‘Well, I’m packed and I’m going.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  The blow to the head was sudden, sharp, utterly unexpected and instantly fatal. There was very little blood, and a towel wrapped tightly around the head, a plastic shopping bag over that, took care of any post-mortem seepage.

  The bedroom door locked to keep out any casual nosiness, it remained only to remove the car.

  The killer left by the back door, wearing the dead man’s coat and scarf and carrying his suitcase and battered leather shoulder bag. Out the back way and across the lawn, through the small door that led into the carriage house and then into the gravelled area where the cars had been parked.

  The only danger point was the gated road, the only drivable way from the house to the narrow country lane that everyone referred to as the Main Road. Had there been another car coming along the gated track then one of them would have to give way, drivers would scrutinize one another, and it would be obvious that the current driver of the car and its owner were not one and the same. This was unlikely though, as only the local farmer regularly came up that way; everyone else was inside the house and not likely to want to go out that afternoon in the pouring rain.

  Luck held; car and suitcase temporarily disposed of in a gully at the edge of the wood, a walk back across the fields, keeping close to the high boundary hedges and out of sight, was all it took. Wellingtons washed and back in the boot room. All done and dusted, and then only the little apology for not returning sooner to the waiting company.

  ‘Sorry. I needed a bit of fresh air before I felt like talking to anyone.’

  Nods of agreement, and a few disgruntled mumblings, though these were soon set aside.

  ‘Oh well, he’s gone. We’ll have to carry on without him.’

  ‘Yes, he has definitely gone.’

  There was much left to do, and the company got back to doing it.

  Only one other of them understood the implication: that ‘gone’ had a more permanent meaning than the simple departure of a discontented guest.

  ONE

  Aikensthorpe House, January 3rd 1872

  ‘You will wear the diamonds?’ It wasn’t really a question, even though he had phrased it as such. He held the black leather box in both hands, presenting it to her.

  ‘I will wear the diamonds,’ she confirmed. He liked to see her well decorated, this husband of hers. He needed to see his prized possessions properly presented, and she was never left in any doubt that she, too, was one of his treasures.

  He laid the black box down on her dressing table and shooed her maid aside as he opened the latch and withdrew the exquisite necklace. She bowed her head forward, exposing the nape of her neck so that he could fasten the clasp.

  ‘There.’ He smiled at her in the mirror as she looked up, and Elizabeth managed a small twitch of her lips in return. ‘Beautiful,’ he said, his hands – fat, clumsy hands, she thought – hovering over her bare shoulders.

  He straightened then and drew back, as though suddenly recalling the presence of her maid. ‘I will let you finish dressing.’ His fingers brushed her curls as he stepped back, and she could feel how much he wanted to touch her and also how much this awkward but, she had to admit, generous and caring man was in a we of her.

  She just wished that she could love him in return. She just wished, oh so very hard, that he could somehow, miraculously, be younger, more attractive, less prosaic.

  She relaxed as the bedroom door closed and her maid resumed her task, arranging Madame’s hair and tweaking the bright stones in their floral settings into better position. More diamonds were then fixed into her hair, a task her husband would, fortunately, never dream of attempting. She could imagine the fat and clumsy fingers tugging at her ringlets as he tried to fix the fragile little clips in place.

  ‘Madame will go down now?’ Her maid stepped back and handed Elizabeth her handkerchief, well perfumed with rose water.

  ‘Thank you, Abigail, that will be all.’

  She waited until the maid had left and then paused to survey her reflection in the cheval glass, tugging at her skirts and arranging her neckline impatiently. The pale rose silk looked well against her skin and made her dark hair look even more richly brown. She nodded to her reflection. She would do. She practised her social smile before leaving her bedroom, checking in the glass that it looked appropriately cheerful but still just that little bit aloof. Then frowned impatiently, recalling her mother’s instructions and schooling. ‘You must always be a lady, Elizabeth dear.’

  After all, she supposed, that was why Albert had married her, adding her name and lineage to his money and business acumen. Everyone had been happy. No – everyone who mattered had been happy, and Elizabeth was under no illusion that she was anything other than at the bottom, the very end, of that particular list.

  But – and it was quite a considerable but – Albert was kind to her in an awkward sort of way, he denied her nothing and indulged her interests, and he supported what he called her quest,
her talent.

  Her small smile was more genuine as she left the room, anticipating the events that would follow this evening. This was to be her triumph, the first of many that would, she believed and hoped, set her free once more to go out into the world, acclaimed for what she truly was.

  TWO

  ‘We’re lost,’ Joy said.

  ‘We can’t be lost, we’ve got a satnav.’

  ‘Which has brought us into the middle of a muddy field in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a rainstorm.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Tim agreed, ‘but I’m sure it knows what it’s doing, and it’s not exactly the middle of a field, there’s a road.’

  ‘There’s a track. A cart track if I’m being generous. Oh, God, look, there’s yet another gate that needs opening.’

  ‘Well, it did say on the sign that it was a gated road. There’s bound to be gates on a gated road, I’d have thought.’

  Joy glared at him. ‘And who’s the silly sod getting soaked opening them every time?’

  Rina leaned forward in the rear seat and peered out through the windscreen. The rain was coming down in curtains, but she could just make out the five-barred gate blocking their way. ‘Do you want me to do this one, Joy?’

  The girl turned with a quick smile. ‘Don’t be daft, Rina. No sense more than one of us getting soaked, is there?’ She waited until Tim had pulled up close to the gate, then dashed out, held it open as he drove through, and threw herself back into the passenger seat, water streaming from her hair.

  ‘Sure you shut it properly?’ Tim asked, risking life and limb in the process, Rina thought.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Joy said tightly. ‘I’m quite sure. How many more of those bloody things do we have to deal with?’

  ‘Hopefully that should be the last. We’re almost there, according to the satnav. You’re steaming the windows up,’ he added, and Rina cringed. Tim could be so downright stupid sometimes.

  ‘Look,’ she said, hoping to distract a now furious Joy. ‘I think I saw something, just ahead.’

  They all looked, straining to see anything through rain so thick and treacly that the wipers could barely cope on their fastest setting. A few hundred yards ahead, something more solidly grey emerged and coalesced from the overall gloom. Geometrically imposing, crenellated . . . Rina thought that Aikensthorpe House positively glowered.

  The track transformed into a gravel drive for the last few hundred yards, and the drive then curved about a circular lawn and deposited them in front of a flight of wide steps.

  ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ Joy was suddenly doubtful.

  ‘Of course it is. There can’t be two Aikensthorpe Houses, can there?’

  ‘So, do we just park up here, or what?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Rina said, ‘we should all go inside and find out, then Tim can take the car to the car park or wherever. No sense us all going with him and then getting wet walking back, is there?’

  ‘No,’ Joy agreed firmly, ‘there is not.’ She glared in Tim’s direction, an action completely lost upon him.

  Rina hid her smile. Joy wouldn’t stay mad for long, and a quick word with Tim would remind him that he needed to pay more attention to his fiancée, even when his mind was otherwise occupied – and right now it was full of the potential of this weekend at Aikensthorpe. Neither Rina nor Joy was particularly enthused by the idea of a weekend conference well stocked with both stage magicians and experts in the esoteric, not to mention the thought of attending lectures on the links between circa nineteenth-century stage magic and the rise of spiritualism, but they both knew Tim would be in his element and really hadn’t felt they could refuse to come.

  Joy had accompanied him, of course, simply because she wanted to be with Tim; Rina because she needed him to give her a lift back to Frantham on the Monday morning. True, she could have taken the train to Exeter and then Honiton and then got herself a taxi home, or she could have taken up Bridie Duggan’s offer of one of her employees driving her back, but Rina really didn’t want to put anyone out now that the nightclub staff were finally getting to take their holidays after the frenetic Christmas and New Year. As for the train, the dual threat of industrial action and ongoing repairs, which she knew had caused chaos for the past weeks, had really put her off that option.

  ‘Stay here a bit longer,’ Bridie Duggan, Joy’s mother, had urged. Rina had been tempted. She and Tim had enjoyed a wonderful few days with Bridie in Manchester, the first real break from responsibility Rina had experienced in a very long time. She had shopped and lunched and gone to the theatre, and the thought of extending her freedom was a tempting one. She had finally declined, knowing that those she had left behind at home would be missing her; that she, in fact, was missing them. If she came with Tim, they could drive home as promised on the Monday.

  ‘Ring this Aikensthorpe place,’ Bridie had instructed. ‘Chances are there won’t be another room available and the decision will be made for you.’

  It had seemed like a sensible plan.

  It turned out, however, that there’d been a cancellation. Yes, there was room for ‘another delegate’. She would be very welcome.

  And so here they all were, Rina thought. In the middle of nowhere in the middle of a rainstorm, as Joy had said.

  ‘Ready?’ Joy asked. ‘Right, let’s make a run for it.’

  Three car doors opened, three people ran up the granite steps and through the double doors at the top. Rina glanced back towards the car, which was barely visible now as the rain began to fall even more heavily.

  They stood dripping collectively on the wooden floor, surprised by the sudden quiet as the heavy doors swung closed and shut out the noise of violent weather.

  ‘Oh,’ Joy gasped, and Rina silently agreed. This was positively baronial. Set before them was a wide entrance-way with a centrepiece of sweeping staircase. Off to the left was a massive fireplace of carved blue-grey stone; on the right, what appeared to be an improvised reception desk, currently unmanned. They were in the correct place then, Rina thought.

  The trestle-table reception desk was strewn with leaflets and programmes and various books and magazines pertaining to the magical and spiritual arts. A handbell, which reminded Rina of her school days, had been set on the corner of the table with a sign next to it that exhorted them to ‘please ring for attention’.

  Squelching her way across the polished wooden boards, Joy rang the bell loudly. They waited, wondering how anyone could ignore that insistent clang, which must have echoed through the entire house.

  About a minute later, though it had felt longer to those dripping in the hallway, a young woman scurried through a door to the right of the reception area.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, oh my goodness you’re soaked! I’m Melissa, let’s find out who you are and get you to your rooms there’s tea and coffee making facilities and I can get you sandwiches if you’re hungry.’ She paused for breath and looked them up and down. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You must be Mr Timothy Brandon and his guest, and you must be Mrs Martin. Our last-minute replacement.’ She looked very pleased with herself, and Rina was possessed by a sudden desire to tell her she was wrong.

  ‘I left the car at the bottom of the steps,’ Tim said. ‘Should I move it?’

  ‘Oh, no, leave it until the rain stops, there’s plenty of space for anyone else arriving. There’s a car-parking bit round the back if you want to get it out of the way. There’ll be the buses arriving tomorrow from the other convention, and we’re not exactly easy to get to.’ She beamed. ‘Luggage?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Tim looked expectantly at the two women.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Tim?’ Rina said. ‘I think Joy and I will go up and find our rooms.’ She returned Melissa’s beaming, but now faintly puzzled, smile.

  ‘Oh, er, yes. OK.’ Tim looked a little put out.

  Rina and Joy watched him go.

  ‘I had to open all the gates,’ Joy said. ‘It’s his turn to get soaked. Tell me, does it do anything
else round here but rain?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Melissa assured them. ‘Apparently, they’re forecasting snow for the weekend.’

  Rina sat beside the window in her allocated room, drinking a very welcome cup of tea and trying to understand the lie of the land beyond. The rain had slowed, just a little, but the wind had increased in strength and alternately slammed great waves of water against the window or blew it swirling away. In the brief gaps between these alternatives, Rina had been able to make out a sweep of what she assumed was lawn and a line of trees beyond. Her room was at the rear of the house and on the second floor. It had been, she was told, part of the nursery wing, as they used to call it. Her room had been the nanny’s bedroom, and the bathroom now occupied what had been the adjoining bedroom where her small charges would have slept. It was almost stubbornly quiet, here at the top and rear of the house, and Rina decided that the previous owners of Aikensthorpe must have been of the ‘children should be neither seen nor heard’ school of thought.

  A gentle knock on the door announced Joy’s arrival. She had changed out of her sodden jeans and was now dressed in what she called her ‘softies’. Tracksuit bottoms, T-shirt and a zippered, hooded top. Thick, stripy socks with separate toes completed the ensemble, and her long red hair had been towel dried and then left loose. Rina, used to the younger woman’s mature attitude, sometimes forgot that Joy was ten years younger than Rina’s beloved Tim, but dressed like this, and with her cheeks slightly flushed from the hot shower, she looked like a teenager, not a young woman of twenty-one.

  Joy held a plastic carrier bag in her hands. ‘Jeans,’ she said. ‘Caked in mud. Melissa said I could stick them in the washing machine. I just wanted to see if you had anything that needed to go in.’

  ‘No, I think I survived relatively unscathed,’ Rina told her. ‘Has Tim dried himself off?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and found the guidebook and gone exploring. Some place, isn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly is.’

  Joy flopped down on the edge of Rina’s bed and tucked her feet under her. ‘Am I the only one wishing I’d told Tim to come on his own?’