Murder at the Manse (The Falconer Files Book 5)

by Andrea Frazer

  II

  While the guests were waking up to their various demons of the night before, and Percy had gone in search of her husband, having given up on ever finding her host, Jefferson Grammaticus seized the opportunity to phone an employment agency in Market Darley, in the hope of securing extra members of staff for the coming evening, and was flabbergasted to hear that there was only one possible on their books. How could this be? The country was in the grips of a recession. Surely there must be someone out there who wanted to earn a crust by helping him earn his?

  But the answer was a definite ‘no’. They would contact the lone client currently resting on their books, and get back to him later in the day. Should she turn up of her own accord before they had phoned back, he should be sure to look out for a Melanie Saunders who would be coming from Carsfold, and actually had some experience in hospitality.

  Well, he supposed, one pair of extra hands was better than none, and he would just have to be grateful for small mercies, and manage until he could apportion out the work better, and had a more realistic understanding of just how many people he needed to offer the service he had promised. With only another casual wage to pay out, he would have the opportunity to consult his little black book again, and trawl up some ‘value for money’ help. There were plenty of attic rooms where they could live in, and he had no qualms about what he was doing at all.

  No sooner had he terminated the call, than he heard a high-pitched scream of despair from the kitchen, followed by a torrent of fast, loud, and probably quite demotic French. Jefferson may not be able to identify an individual by their scream, but he knew that Chef was involved, and he could not countenance a crisis on this day of all days, when the food was of paramount importance.

  Rising from his leather captain’s chair, he sped off across the hall towards the sound of what was now a quite vociferous argument. Beatrix Ironmonger was in there, and if his housekeeper and his Chef were at war, he might just as well send everybody home and bolt the doors.

  As he entered the food preparation area, the tableau in front of him was not encouraging. Chef had a kitchen knife poised in a raised hand, and Beatrix Ironmonger stood with her fists clenched at her sides, her whole being bristling with fury.

  ‘How dare you! How dare you, you despicable little … Frog! How dare you kick … how dare you hurt an innocent little cat. How you have the nerve to stoop to cruelty to animals – but then, that’s the French all over isn’t it? Especially you! If you can’t eat it or seduce it, you have no conscience at all in inflicting physical pain!’

  All the while she was spitting these vehement words in his face, Antoine was hissing and rumbling like a pressure cooker about to blow. ‘You stupid woman! Deed you not see what your eenocent leetle pussy cat was doing? Hein? ’E was only leecking mah viande – oh, ’ow you say – mah meat, wheech Ah ’ave left out for tonight’s diner. ’E is a thief! And you are an espece de vache …’ Again he struggled with the English language in his fury. ‘You are a type of cow, you ugly old lady-fiend!’

  ‘That’s enough!’ shouted Jefferson, from his position just inside the door. ‘I don’t know what has happened, but this is not acceptable behaviour for two members of my staff. Now, either sort it out amicably, or you can both pack your bags.’ He didn’t, of course, mean that, but he knew what the termination of their employment would mean to them both, and he had no doubts that this, above all else, would extinguish the flames of anger that had so violently broken out.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Grammaticus,’ burst out Beatrix Ironmonger, ‘but this foreign – this deviant has kicked my Perfect Cadence. He kicked her clean out of the back door, and I don’t know where she’s gone to ground. That’s grounds for reporting him to the RSPCA, as far as I’m concerned.’

  Chef cut across her sob story. ‘Eet was leecking mah meat, the feelthy leetle beast!’ he exclaimed loudly, took one look at his employer’s face, and dropped his eyes to the floor. ‘Ah am sorry, Meester Grammaticus, but ’ow do I do the diner now?’

  ‘Do you have adequate meat in the freezer to replace it?’ asked Jefferson with forced calm.

  ‘Ah do, but eet iz frozen soleed.’

  ‘Then defrost it in the microwaves I have so generously provided you with, and stop whinging. It’s my loss, not yours. I shall be the one who ends up paying for it. If you start now, you will have lost no time. Now stop wasting my time with trivialities! If this venture fails, then out you go. In fact, if I find you behaving in this childish manner again, I shall turf you both out anyway. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Right! Get on with your duties. Mrs Ironmonger, I must insist that, when your cat returns, you confine it to your living quarters. Chef, if you use your foot again in such a manner, I shall do the same to you, as you fly down the front steps with your bags following you. Now, get on with things in a civilised manner. I’m your employer, not your blasted nanny.’

  After this little scrap, Mrs Ironmonger returned to her quarters at the top of the building. She felt much more at home here, than in the dove grey room, which she found cold and unwelcoming. She had lived, for a long period, without adequate colour in her life and, at least in her own quarters, she had all her little darlings around her, and her pretty things.

  In fact, her room was a shrine to the cats she had owned throughout her lifetime. A long acquaintance with a taxidermist had given her the opportunity never to part from any of them and, scattered across the floor, was a series of tiny furry rugs, each bearing the head of a deceased feline.

  Barnabas, her very first cat, looked up at her as she approached her favourite chair, and Brian and Harry stared from the other side of the fireplace. Near her dining table were Marbles and Monkey, and Kelly Finn and Misty flanked her bed. She derived a great deal of comfort from her former precious furry companions, and returned to them this morning, to soften the blow of the way in which her Perfect Cadence had been treated.

  After visually greeting her ex-cats, she raked the room with her eyes, taking in all the ornaments of which she was so fond, and which provided the room with a positive rainbow of colour. How fond she was of every piece, and how homely they made the room look. A sigh escaped her lips, as she settled back in her armchair for a little think.

  Back in his office, Jefferson was subject to a sense of impending doom, and the first thing his mind alighted upon was the value of the collection of costumes, now left in his care. With a start, he leapt to his feet – calm! calm! calm! old boy – then moderated his steps, and decided just to take a short stroll to the billiards room to have a little check.

  As he emerged into the foyer, he caught sight of the Newberrys making their way down the stairs, and the sight immediately lightened his mood with a sardonic amusement. Teddy didn’t look too bad: a little shaky perhaps, but had managed a smudge of make-up and was tidily dressed. Fruity, however, was in a class of his own.

  His tie was askew, a stretched leg down a step revealed unmatched socks, and his wig – oh, his wig! – was a magnificent creature today, struggling for freedom. Its join was askew, and, at the back of the man’s head, stray wisps of his own hair fought the alien beast in their own bid for superiority. His complexion was a shade of pale grey, and his hand shook as he moved it down the banister. He was a broken man, indeed, who would have to look to the excesses he heaped upon his own body, if he wanted to make older bones.

  Jefferson could only hope that his spirits might revive themselves sufficiently to allow him to play his part tonight. He had been allotted the part of a loud and obnoxious fellow, the parts having been assigned only after the guests had arrived and sized-up, and it was to be hoped that he would be his normal unpleasant self after a few hairs of the old dog, and that the few hairs actually left on the old dog himself, would sleep peacefully under any powdered wig that he might assume at dinner tonight.

  His confidence thus restored, he made only a short foray into the realms of fancy
dress, just to put his mind at rest, then headed off to find the Freemans, to check that they were au fait with the parts they would play tonight – not that he had anything less than complete faith in them, but it was always as well to check, rather than leave anything to fate.

  III

  Harry Falconer lay staring into the darkness, his body and bedclothes soaked in the cold sweat that dripped and rolled from his body. His heart was thudding, his breathing fast and shallow, while his whole body shuddered. He hadn’t had that dream since he was a major in the army, but the sheer horror of it still filled him with terror and shame. He could hear nothing, see nothing, except for the unfolding scene that he had just dreamt for the first time in years.

  He could hear again the screams, the cries for Mother; the clash of metal on metal, and the harsh guttural syllables echoed in his ears. He could feel the agony he had experienced then, the sheer terror of the consequences of what was happening to him, and what that would bring down upon his world. Again and again, the screams of horror and sobs rent the air, in his memory, and he started to shiver, his teeth chattering with fear and disgust.

  Nanny Vogel had been a real sadist, and the sheer brute force of her personality, forcing him to eat a whole plate of Brussels sprouts, had never left him: that and her threats to tell his father what a disobedient, stubborn, and downright rude little boy he had been.

  The scene only ended when he threw up on his plate, when she admonished him for his ingratitude and wastefulness, promising him many more greens, if he didn’t mend his horrible little boy ways, and start acting like a good, respectful young man.

  Reluctantly, he remembered how her moustache had glittered in the sunlight, on particularly bright days, the bristling hairs on her chin positively winking at him in the light. But her lips were thin and cruel, her eyes pale and soul-piercing, and she had inspired terror in him for nearly twelve months of his early childhood.

  She had held sway, for what had been an eternity for the young boy that had been Falconer, a prisoner under her baleful military influence. That she had inspired in him a greater fear than any danger military and police life had thrown at him, still failed to surprise him, however. She was the monster under the bed, and the beast that scratched at his bedroom door at night in an attempt to devour him.

  After such an inauspicious start to the day, Detective Inspector Harry Falconer arrived at the office a little earlier than usual, to quell his clamouring thoughts. He had a lot of paperwork to clear away, and was anxious to get a head start on it, before Detective Sergeant Carmichael arrived. That was not to say that Carmichael was a distraction – well, he was, actually the DS was newly married with two stepsons, had appalling dress sense, and absolutely no inhibitions. Davey Carmichael was a one-off.

  Built like a barn door, he still retained all the traits of a child in his behaviour. Falconer had thought, at first acquaintance, that the young man might be a bit simple, but nothing had proved further from the truth. He had not only preserved his ‘inner-child’, but had never, in fact, had to conceal its presence. He was totally without guile, and behaved exactly as he felt, never hiding behind the veneer that most of us wear to declare us adults. Carmichael was Carmichael, as he had always been and as Falconer hoped he would always remain. He might seem a bit weird to some people, but he had become a figure that the inspector knew he could trust and depend on; a very important aspect of their work together, as they were each responsible, not just for their own safety, but for that of their partner, as well.

  Falconer’s first instincts had been those of a man suddenly landed with the job of child-minding, his own background being so dissimilar, but his fears had proved unfounded, and he knew this was merely a difference in upbringing. He, himself, had been – well, we won’t go into those early years, after the state in which he had awoken that morning.

  He had gone to prep school at eight, boarding school at twelve, then straight on to university, and from there, into the army, from which he had emerged, only to join the police force. He definitely lacked Carmichael’s joie de vivre and enjoyment in the simple things in life, but he liked to think that they each had something to teach the other, to the enrichment of both their lives, and, overall, he enjoyed working with him.

  The paperwork soothed rather than irritated him today, and he was feeling more like his normal, in-control self, when the office door burst open, and Carmichael exploded into Falconer’s morning, wearing a baseball cap, as he had been wearing when Falconer first met him, but this time, at a jaunty sideways angle, and what appeared to be a small white stick protruding from one corner of his mouth.

  The DS shed his jacket, but sat at his desk, the cap still perched on his head, and enthusiastic slurping noises escaping his mouth, as he worked at whatever it was he had on the end of that white stick. ‘Morning, sir. How’s it going?’ he asked, moving the stick from side to side, as he spoke around his oral obstruction.

  This was more like it! Nanny Vogel could go to hell! She was probably in a nursing home by now, being treated like the helpless child he had been when under her dubious care. This was a confidence-restoring thought, and Falconer hoped, with a tiny frisson of embarrassment at his Schadenfreude, that she dribbled, was incontinent, and force-fed Brussels sprouts every Sunday, as he had been.

  ‘What have you got in your mouth, Carmichael? And why have you still got your hat on? Surely the sheer heat of this glorious day negates the necessity for headgear?’ he asked, genuinely interested.

  ‘Not for me, sir. I’ve got a real chilly head this morning.’

  And with this cryptic statement, he removed the baseball cap with a ‘Ta-da!’ revealing a newly-shaven scalp, pulled a lollipop from his mouth, and carolled ‘Who loves ya, baby?’ in an appalling imitation of an American accent.

  Falconer’s mouth fell open with surprised horror. What was the man up to now, but he didn’t have to wait more than a couple of seconds for an explanation of this new phase in Carmichael’s appearance. ‘We’ve been getting repeats of an old American police series called Kojak on the telly. Boy, he’s cool! And I got fed up with the bleached look. What with the hot weather and everything, I said to Kerry last night, let’s have a go at that. It’s got to be cooler than my mop, so she got out the clippers and – hey presto! But it felt a lot cooler outside than I thought it would, so I grabbed this cap while I got used to it.’

  Daft as ever, thought the inspector, and advised him not to stand in full sunlight with his shiny pate. Not only would it burn easily (and Carmichael with a brain fever didn’t bear thinking about), but he didn’t want the police sued for any car accidents because the driver had been blinded by the glare. If his sergeant suffered sunburn of the scalp, he had no doubt that he would expect to go about his business with an ice-pack strapped to his head without giving it a second thought.

  ‘Better keep the hat on when you go outside. Your scalp will be sensitive for a while, and you need to expose it slowly to the elements. Now, what have you got on for today?’

  ‘I’ve got to write up my notes for that series of burglaries, and I’m in court this afternoon,’ he informed his superior.

  ‘Good grief! You’re going to give evidence in court looking like a skinhead thug?’

  ‘Sir! That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’

  ‘Have you actually taken a look in the mirror since Kerry, ah, remodelled you?’

  ‘Didn’t see the point, sir. I never use one shaving: there was too much competition for the bathroom when I lived at home with Mum and the family, so I got used to doing it by feel. That aside, I know what I look like, so it didn’t seem necessary to preen in front of a looking glass.’

  ‘Take yourself off to the gents’, then come back and tell me what you think,’ Falconer advised, a small smile twitching at the right-hand side of his mouth.

  Carmichael’s journey of discovery took only two minutes and seventeen seconds. Falconer timed it. ‘They’re gonna marmalise me in court, sir. I look like a vi
llain. No one’s gonna listen to a word I say. They’re either going to be terrified of me, or laugh their pants off. What am I gonna do, sir?’

  ‘You’re going to wear my Panama hat. That’s what you’re going to do, Carmichael,’ soothed the inspector, rising to retrieve it from the stand, where he had carefully placed it on arrival. ‘With that on, you’ll look your normal everyday self.’

  And then he winced. Carmichael’s normal everyday self was not like that of other ordinary mortals, and although he had moderated his flamboyant taste in clothes of late, on Fridays, and at the weekends, he still looked like the victim of an explosion at a jumble sale, where all the most colourful items of clothing just happened to have landed on him.

  ‘You’ll be fine. I’ve got a spare tie in my drawer,’ (of course!), ‘and you can borrow that. The courtroom’s always on the cool side, so you shouldn’t get overheated, and the tie and hat will lend a certain air of respectability to your appearance,’ he advised, but being careful to cross his fingers under the desk as he spoke this last.

  ‘Thanks, sir. You’re a real life saver. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  Falconer had a fair idea, and it wasn’t a pretty thought. And, come to think of it, a ‘life-saver’ in the US was a small fruit sweet. Which he, most definitely, was not, and he hoped that his sergeant had not culled this expression from the elderly American television he had obviously been devouring with great enjoyment.

  ‘If I want to look really different, I could go to that fancy dress shop in Carsfold and buy a false moustache,’ Carmichael declared, breaking the inspector’s reverie. Then I could really go undercover, with this new head of mine. It would give me an air of gravitas, I think.’ ( Gravitas? Carmichael? Some hopes!)