The Dead of Winter

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Up to us then.’

  ‘So it would seem. Right, let’s get Brown on to the generator and find the candles, just in case. We should make sure everyone charges their mobiles while we’ve still got electric and get out extra blankets.’

  ‘Blankets?’

  ‘If the power goes out, the generator will take care of essentials, but the rest of the house is going to be very cold and very dark.’

  Using Melissa’s old tea trolley, Rina and the others took food through to the main hall. They had met PC Brown and Terry in the hallway going off to sort the generator, and Melissa – awake now, if a little vague – had been dispatched with helpers to find quilts and blankets.

  ‘Do you think the power really will go out?’ Gail looked scared.

  ‘We should be prepared, and we should all stay together,’ Chandler said. ‘Round here most of the lines are above ground, just like the phone, so it’s not unusual.’

  PC Brown and Terry returned, snow-covered and chilled, with news that the generator was fuelled and ready to go and they had found paraffin and a cache of lamps in the same outbuilding. They had brought them into the boot room.

  ‘So, what now?’ Mac asked.

  Chandler shrugged. ‘We eat our sandwiches and we drink our tea and we let Melissa tell everyone what’s been going on, see who reacts. Any better ideas and I’m ready to listen.’

  ‘No, given the current situation, I’m not sure I do, unless it’s to do nothing until we get back up. Three dead already, it’s not an encouraging figure. One thing I didn’t ask – did you get anything on the book dealer Melissa claimed was the stranger Rina saw?’

  ‘I’m still waiting to hear back. In fact, there’s a few loose ends I’ve only half tied up, one of which looks very interesting.’

  ‘Care to share?’

  Chandler smiled. ‘Later, when I’ve got all the pieces. We’d better go in. Rina is waiting.’

  Melissa had managed not to cry as she had told everyone about her background and Toby; how she had come to work here; and how she had stolen to protect Toby and pay his debts.

  On one side of the room Mac sat beside Miriam, watching the reactions. Chandler leaned against the fireplace, mug of tea in hand. How come, Mac wondered, he had a mug, when the rest of them were making do with silly little white catering cups?

  Rina sat with Tim and Joy. She knew the story already and made no comment as Melissa reprised her tale. She seemed to be watching Viv and Robin rather than Melissa, Mac noted, and he wondered why. Joy was frowning fiercely, as though something puzzled her, though Mac knew that she, too, had heard this before.

  ‘So, that’s it then,’ Gail said, her voice rising angrily. ‘It’s this gang, whoever they are. They killed Simeon and Edwin and now Toby.’ She turned to Chandler. ‘I demand you let us leave, get us protection.’

  ‘I would love to,’ Chandler said evenly. ‘But as your previous attempts to leave must have demonstrated, wanting and doing are two different animals.’

  ‘Melissa,’ Rina asked, ‘the box of papers you said you found in the seance room – is that true?’

  A moment’s hesitation. ‘The box was there, some papers in it. The rest were from the family. I brought them here.’

  ‘Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can you sort out for me what was in the box and what wasn’t?’

  ‘Why? What does it matter?’

  ‘If you could just do what Mrs Martin asks,’ Chandler told her.

  Melissa shrugged and looked away.

  ‘I’ve got another question,’ Chandler said. ‘About the ownership of this place.’

  Mac saw Melissa flinch, the reaction barely perceptible but definitely there.

  ‘It’s owned by some consortium or other,’ David Franklin said. ‘We all know that. Oh, and Edwin and Simeon had shares, didn’t they?’

  ‘Edwin, Simeon, you and Grace Wright did, Mr Franklin.’

  ‘Professor Franklin.’

  ‘How do you come to own shares in this place? Why Aikensthorpe House?’

  David Franklin opened his mouth . . . and then shut it again.

  ‘Professor Franklin?’

  ‘Simeon told me. He said that this consortium, Reality whatsit, had bought Aikensthorpe and were selling a small number of shares. I don’t know how he heard, but we both found the idea appealing. I think he must also have told Edwin.’

  ‘Your reasons?’

  David Franklin glared. He controlled his emotions less effectively recently, Rina noted. ‘It’s buying a little bit of history,’ he said. ‘Like you buying a piece of police memorabilia.’

  ‘I think an old truncheon might come in at a lower price,’ Chandler said. He turned his attention to Melissa. ‘Though maybe you gave them mates rates, did you?’

  ‘What?’ Melissa got to her feet. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Ah, well, you see, all my phoning around turned up some interesting bits and scraps. Like the fact that when Albert Southam died, he tied this place up in trust so it couldn’t be sold, not until either his daughter or his daughter’s descendants came back to claim this place, or until those who held the trust judged that wasn’t likely to happen or financial problems forced a sale. Well, five years or so ago that came about. The law firm that had administered the trust finally closed, and those responsible for winding up its affairs decided the house should be sold on – all but ten per cent of the value, which should be held in the form of shares in whatever business took over.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t begin to understand the ins and outs of it, but the fact remains that a proportion of the value and ownership of this place remained in trust, just in case some relative of Southam’s showed up. It seems he forgave his wife and loved his daughter.’

  ‘So why did Elizabeth never come back?’

  ‘Because she died,’ Melissa said. ‘Giving birth to Grace. It happened a lot back then. I don’t know why it was concealed, but Albert knew, and the servants who went with Elizabeth to Rome continued to look after Grace until Albert died.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘More scandal.’ Melissa shrugged. ‘Though it was hushed up by friends of Albert. It all got very messy. George Weston challenged the will, saying Albert Southam had promised to marry his mother but had then cast her out. He had letters and papers to support that. He threatened if he ever caught up with Grace he’d kill her, so the servants went into hiding with her. Grace only found out who she was when she got married and became Grace Wright. It all faded into family history – you know, the kind of legend lots of families have about lost rich relatives. No one really believes them.’

  ‘But you found out there was truth to the rumours.’

  ‘Eventually, yes. It was Toby who found out, really. He saw that Aikensthorpe had come on the market. There was an article in some magazine or other, and it mentioned the strange mystery of the Aikensthorpe heirs, and suddenly what we’d imagined and wished for when we were kids, it all seemed possible.’

  ‘But you couldn’t claim the house?’ Mac asked.

  She shook her head. ‘No, it had all gone too far, the trust wound up and all that.’

  ‘So what happened to the money from the sale?’

  ‘It’s still going through the courts, isn’t it, Grace?’ Chandler said. ‘But it seems there are other descendants challenging now.’

  ‘Grace?’

  ‘Melissa is my second name,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve never cared much for Grace. It’s so bloody insipid. This house should have been mine. I’ve already proved that.’

  ‘Granted,’ Chalmers said. ‘My legal contacts tell me you’d proved enough to get hold of the ten per cent. You are a direct descendent of Elizabeth and Albert Southam, but I’m told your chances of taking the rest are pretty minimal because of certain codicils in the will favouring George Weston and his kin.’

  ‘Forged!’ Melissa said fiercely. ‘They were forged. Weston was an evil man, a crim
inal.’

  ‘Aside from that, both the previous sale and the current one were totally legitimate, even if those that bought this place are using it as a front for illegal activities.’

  ‘So can’t their assets be seized?’ Rina asked. ‘This house included?’

  ‘That won’t help Melissa, will it? Not if there’s any hint she was implicated in any of it.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ Melissa spaced the words emphatically.

  Chandler did not comment on that. ‘So you sold on part of your share. Was that to get Toby out of debt too? You must really have resented that. Selling your birthright to get a wastrel like Toby out of the shit again.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘So you were Grace Wright?’ David Franklin was outraged. ‘We bought our shares from you?’

  Melissa shrugged. ‘I told Edwin, he liked the idea, he told Simeon and Simeon persuaded you. No one but Edwin knew I had a connection to this place. Edwin was just amused.’

  ‘Sounds like Edwin,’ Jay muttered.

  ‘But I still don’t understand what brought Edwin here in the first place,’ Tim said. He seemed to be going off at some kind of tangent, Rina thought, when the question should have been: did Melissa kill Toby?

  ‘I told you – well, I told Rina. Edwin heard we were setting this place up for conferences; he wanted to know if he could see the library and Albert’s room. We became friends, sort of. I liked him, and I liked the idea of him having a share in this place. I didn’t realize he’d then sold most of his shares on.’

  Hence the shock when she heard the names on the list, Rina thought. That’s if she was telling the truth now.

  ‘And did you kill Toby?’ Chandler asked. ‘Did his demands become just too much? After all, he was frittering away your birthright, wasn’t he?’

  Melissa did not respond. She stared past him at the curtained windows.

  ‘Especially when you found out that Toby wasn’t a Southam after all. That his family descended from George Weston’s side.’

  ‘I didn’t care about that,’ Melissa said. ‘You just don’t understand, do you? I loved Toby. I always had. Why should I care what part of the family he came from?’

  ‘But did you kill him,’ Chandler pursued.

  Melissa’s look was pure malice. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I did not kill Toby, or Edwin, or Simeon. Why would I? You want to find a murderer, Inspector Chandler, then you’d better start looking elsewhere.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  The evening dragged on. Slowly, people drifted off to their own rooms, leaving Mac and Chandler and Rina by the fire. Miriam and Jay had wandered back to the library and were poring over esoteric texts on early microscopy which, Miriam told Rina, she had only ever heard about, never thought she’d be able to actually handle.

  Jay, it seemed, was a polymath. Early science, magic and what came to be known as stage magic were all closely related, he told Rina excitedly. Rina had looked in on them to see if they wanted anything from the kitchen, and they had been deep in conversation about some obscure sixteenth-century treatise on what Rina took to be alchemy. She ducked out again when the talk switched to red dragons and cinnabar.

  PC Brown was back to pacing, and Terry, for some reason Rina had yet to fathom, had perched on a high stool in the kitchen and was investigating Melissa’s store of recipe books.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yes, I just phoned my wife. She’s snowed in too. I told her I’d find a recipe for potato bread.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s something to do.’

  ‘What have you told her?’

  ‘That we’re cut off and that Edwin died. I was worried just in case something made it on to the news, but I didn’t want to worry her too much. If she knew the truth she’d be going frantic.’

  Rina nodded; she’d indulged in similar half truths when she had made her own phone call home. ‘Why potato bread?’

  ‘My mum used to make it. Daft how that sort of thing suddenly becomes important, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not so silly,’ Rina told him. A rattle from behind the kitchen attracted her attention.

  ‘Rav’s bringing the lanterns through. The lights keep flickering. I’ve found some candles too.’ Terry pointed to where several boxes had been laid on one of the counters. ‘And I’ve filled the Thermos flasks and the tea urn.’

  Rav appeared with his hands full of lanterns. He smiled at Rina. ‘I thought I’d put these in the hall. They’ve all been filled.’

  ‘Matches?’

  ‘With the candles.’

  ‘Looks like we’re all set then. Where’s Melissa?’

  ‘Gone to her room,’ Rav said. ‘I told her to lock the door.’

  Rina nodded. She gave Rav a hand to bring the other lanterns through and then wandered back to Mac and the fire.

  Passing Melissa’s office, she saw Chandler speaking on his mobile; he looked annoyed about something. Moments later he followed her through and flopped down on the small sofa.

  ‘More problems?’ Mac asked.

  ‘No, not exactly. They picked up Melissa’s dodgy book dealer. Surprise, surprise, he had form. He admits being here on the Friday night, which is when Rina saw him leave, presumably. He said Melissa left a package for him in the boot room in one of the cupboards, as was usual. He trekked back across the fields and picked up his car not far from the cottage where we found friend Toby. He denies going in. Forensics will tell us more on that, but he is adamant he’s not been back since, so the footprints you spotted must have been someone else. Always supposing, of course, that he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘What reason would he have to kill Toby?’ Rina mused. ‘None that I can see. Toby knew what Melissa was doing, so he’s not likely to have caused trouble.’

  ‘Any record of violence?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘So who did I see on that second night?’

  ‘Well, whose footprints did you see?’ Chandler corrected her. ‘It’s entirely possible that someone just went for a walk.’

  ‘True, but don’t forget, Toby followed someone and tried to film them. They killed him.’

  ‘That’s the assumption,’ Chandler agreed. ‘I now know that Toby was passing on information to whoever we have undercover,’ he added. He frowned, the lack of information clearly nagging.

  ‘Do we know if that officer is here? Or just part of the broader set-up?’ Mac asked.

  ‘No, but I’m guessing maybe a driver or one of the caterers. They have reason to come here, opportunity to see what is going on.’

  Mac nodded. ‘That would make sense.’ He glanced at Rina, expecting an opinion, receiving none, but Mac recognized that look and wondered about it.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Later, when she heard Mac and Miriam return to their room, Rina unlocked her door and knocked on theirs, glad now that this wing of the house was so cut-off from the rest.

  ‘So,’ Mac said, when Rina had taken up possession of the window seat, ‘what is it you haven’t told me?’

  ‘Viv came to me earlier this evening with some interesting information,’ Rina said. ‘I’m honoured that she made such a judgement call and decided I might be trustworthy; I happen to know that she is a very frightened and confused young woman.’

  Mac waited, but Miriam was ahead of him. ‘She’s the undercover police officer, isn’t she?’

  Rina nodded. ‘Apparently, she really is doing the MA, and she just happened to know Toby because of that. She was offered the chance to do her Master’s full time rather than stretch it out over two years if she took the job; originally, she’d cut her hours and turned down a promotion so she could study. I think there’s a bit of family pressure being brought to bear.’

  ‘There’ll be even more now,’ Miriam noted.

  ‘She’s just a kid,’ Mac objected.

  ‘She is twenty-four, and you and I are just feeling our age. She was Toby’s link; he passed his information on through her. Melissa didn’t know
. Toby was allowing her to sell items from the house on his behalf and at the same time was working as a police informer. Viv says he seemed to think that might give him some leverage, afterwards, when the house was sold again.’

  ‘Or someone allowed him to believe that,’ Miriam suggested. ‘Just to get him on side.’

  Mac absorbed this. ‘Then why didn’t Viv come to me or Chandler?’

  ‘Because she doesn’t know you, and she has reason to suspect Chandler. He’s been under investigation, Mac. They think he might be mixed up in all this.’

  ‘Chandler? Why? No, I can’t accept that. What evidence?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. Only something about financial irregularities in his bank account.’

  ‘Which could be anything.’ Mac frowned. ‘I don’t see it, but—’

  ‘But we have to keep it in mind. She’s out of her depth, Mac.’

  ‘And Melissa knows nothing? About Viv? About Toby feeding her information?’

  ‘No,’ Rina said. ‘Melissa just kept paying Toby’s debts; she didn’t know anything of what else he was doing.’

  ‘So, if Melissa confided in Edwin; and he told Simeon; and our assumption about them going to expose what was going on here—’ Miriam began.

  ‘If our assumption is correct, then someone either overheard them talking or Melissa talking to them, but the sad thing is, whoever killed them did it to protect cover that was already blown. Toby had already exposed what was happening here, and they died for nothing.’

  ‘It looks that way,’ Mac said.

  For a minute or two they sat in silence, then Mac said, ‘OK, so we need to cover all bases here. Has Chandler lied about what back-up we can expect? How much suspicion is actually attached to him?’

  ‘How do we find that out?’ Miriam asked.

  ‘We call someone who can do some quiet checking for us,’ Mac said. He plucked his mobile phone from the bedside table and skimmed through the contacts. ‘Alec,’ he said. ‘No, we’re both well. Sorry to be calling so late, but we need a favour. A discreet favour.’