by Agatha Frost
The surface of the desk lacked a handwritten confession or anything else incriminating. The only thing that was out of place was a single pen, which sat in the centre of the mahogany desk. Julia tried the drawers, but they were locked.
She turned around and looked to the bed, but the box of paperwork she had seen during her brief visit was no longer there. Charlotte was a clever woman; she wasn’t going to leave anything of interest on display for somebody to find. She wouldn’t put it past Charlotte to intentionally clean up after herself in case someone did go snooping.
She set off towards the bed, hoping to find something in one of the nightstands, but stopped in her tracks when the door handle creaked and the door edged open. Fear fired up in her heart as she looked around the bedroom for a quick place to hide, but she was in the middle of wide open space.
Facing the door in the dim light, she accepted that she had been caught and that it was all over.
13
“Julia?” she heard her sister whisper. “Is this the right room?”
Sue slipped inside, closing the door softly behind her. Julia’s heart steadied in her chest, and she let out a thankful laugh. She continued to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer, her heart still pounding hard. She arched a brow when she saw an eye mask, a pack of over-the-counter painkillers, a book, and a pair of tweezers. They were perfectly arranged as though they were part of a show home, and not actually items that were ever used.
“What are we looking for?” Sue whispered, looking around the room as she tucked her caramel curls behind her ears.
“I’m not sure,” Julia whispered back, turning back to the desk. “Those drawers are locked, which makes me think there is something in there, but the key could be anywhere.”
Sue walked over and yanked on them just to make sure. She looked in the pot of pens and pencils on the desk, instantly pulling out a tiny silver key.
“Anywhere, you said?” Sue said with a smirk and a wink. “You give the woman too much credit.”
Sue wriggled the key in the top drawer. The lock clicked, and she stepped to the side to let Julia open it up. Heart banging behind the tight dress, Julia quickly slid open the drawer. Her eyes lit up when she saw a single brown manila envelope. She lifted it out with shaky fingers and pulled out a thick stack of stapled paper. Deciding it wouldn’t make a difference if they were caught at that moment, she sat down and began flicking through the paper.
“It looks like a contract of some kind,” Sue whispered as she looked over Julia’s shoulder. “What’s it for?”
“I think it’s the deeds to the castle,” Julia whispered as she flicked through the legal jargon. “It’s hard to tell.”
She landed on the final page, and her eyes wandered to the three signatures at the bottom. One was Henry’s, one was Charlotte’s, and the other Rory’s. In the bottom right-hand corner, a date had been scribbled in the same handwriting as Henry’s signature.
“This is from a month ago,” Julia said, the surprise obvious in her voice.
“Why would he sign his castle over to his kids a month ago?” Sue asked, taking the contract from Julia. “That makes no sense. I thought Charlotte hated her father.”
“I think she did, but she wanted this castle more than anything.”
“So she forced him to sign over the castle and then killed him?” Sue theorised out loud as she scratched at the side of her head. “That doesn’t sound right. Why wait a month, and why shoot him like that? There are easier ways to kill a person, too. Why make it so obvious?”
Julia didn’t know. She had seen Rory and Charlotte reading through and signing so much paperwork recently, she had expected to find something suspicious to pin to them. She wasn’t a lawyer, but the contract appeared to be legitimate.
“Rory is just a co-signer,” Sue said, pointing out the small print under his signature. “This is a straight swap from Henry to Charlotte.”
“He’s their lawyer,” Julia said as she put the paperwork back where she had found it, locked the drawer, and dropped the key back into the pot. “This isn’t what we’re looking for, but it helps.”
“But what are we looking for?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think we’ll find it in here. We need to go next door.”
They crept out of Charlotte’s bedroom and back along the hall. Julia didn’t dare look over the edge of the broken bannister, but she could hear that Rory was sweeping up the vase and talking to somebody under his breath. Knowing she didn’t have much time before dinner, Julia pulled Sue into the room where it had all started on the day of their arrival.
“This is weird,” Sue said as they crept into Henry’s dark bedroom. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No,” Julia said bluntly. “Start looking. There must be some more paperwork in here to explain why he was signing things over to his daughter.”
Julia hurried over to Henry’s desk. It was cluttered in accounts, which Julia cast a quick eye over. She didn’t need to consult her accountant to spot that the castle had been losing money every month. It looked like the business account savings were propping up everything and quickly depleting every month, which explained the skeleton staff. She tried the drawers, and to her surprise, they were all unlocked but also filled with more accounts and receipts. The disorganisation made her feel queasy. She spent an afternoon every month getting her own accounts neatly into order before sending them off to her accountant. She dug amongst the papers, but she was sure she wasn’t going to find what she needed to piece together everything she knew.
Sue dropped to her hands and knees and peered under the bed. She pulled out an old sock and a book, but nothing else of interest. Julia rested the back of her hand against her forehead, wondering if she was barking up the wrong tree entirely. In her mind, this should have been easier, and she should have already been back in her room with Sue discussing what they had found.
Julia dug through Henry’s bin, recoiling when she touched a rotten banana skin. She wiped her fingers on the heavy silk drapes, the moonlight twinkling through as she did. She peered out of the window into the dark, which looked down onto the stone courtyard. Sue tried a door on the opposite side of the room and walked through to the bathroom.
“I doubt you’ll find anything in there,” Julia called after her as loudly as she dared. “Maybe the contract is enough?”
“For DI BabyFace?” Sue called back. “You either hand over two signed confessions or you might as well put on your own handcuffs for trespassing and wasting police time.”
Sue flicked on the bathroom light and began grabbing at the bottles on the counter. Julia tried Henry’s nightstand, hoping it would be a little more revealing than Charlotte’s had been. To her surprise, it was stuffed full of various bottles and boxes. She began pulling them out and laying them on the man’s unmade bed. There was a bottle of hand sanitizer, a tube of hand cream, dissolvable tablets for a dry mouth, a pink bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and a get well soon card.
“He was taking opiate-based painkillers,” Sue said, appearing in the bathroom door with a handful of bottles. “Oramorph, oxycodone, tramadol – doctors don’t prescribe these lightly.”
“Look at this,” Julia said, calling Sue over. “Remember when mum was dying and she constantly had a dry mouth and dry skin?”
“I don’t want to think about that,” Sue mumbled as she placed the bottles on the bed.
“Just look,” Julia said. “What do you see?”
Sue looked down at the items in front of her. It took her a moment to piece together what Julia had only just figured out, but when she did, her eyes opened, and her jaw loosened.
“He was bald,” Sue whispered. “And ghostly white.”
“He had cancer,” Julia whispered back, taking in the items again. “He was dying. That’s why he signed over his castle when he did. That’s why he was divorcing Mary. He wanted to hand Seirbigh Castle down to a McLaughlin, not his fourth stand-in wife. Charlotte said the silver i
n the drawing room had been passed down three generations. Gran said the family bought this place in the nineteen-thirties.”
“Why Charlotte?” Sue asked. “Surely Rory would be the most obvious choice. He’s oldest, and he’s a man.”
“Charlotte wanted it, and that mattered to Henry,” Julia whispered as she picked up the card. “’Get well soon, mate. Andrew’, brief, but he was part of the family according to Charlotte.”
“What does all of this mean?” Sue asked as she walked over to the door and stood exactly where the murderer would have been standing. “She would have been right here when she shot her father.”
Sue held an invisible rifle, and shot it, her shoulder motioning the pushback that would have caused Charlotte’s bruise. Julia’s eyes opened wide, and she suddenly realised how wrong she had gotten everything.
“Because she didn’t,” Julia said as she stuffed the items back in the drawer. “We need to go. It’s nearly time.”
“What? I thought you said she murdered her father and then Mary to clean up the transfer of the castle?”
“I was wrong,” Julia said with a heavy shake of her head. “I know who killed Henry, even if I don’t know how they managed to get out of here without being seen.”
Julia straightened out the sheets, flicked off the bathroom light, and then the desk lamp. She hurried back to the door, but her heart stopped when she heard the doorknob rattling in the dark. She looked at Sue, who was standing inches away from the door with her hand outstretched, but nowhere near. Without another word, she dragged Sue into the walk-in closet and carefully closed the door just as the bedroom door opened and light flooded in from the hall.
Pressing her finger against her lips, Julia stared through the slats in the door as a shadowy figure stepped into the bedroom, closing the door behind them. She was sure the pounding of her heart would give them away, even if she were barely breathing. In the faint light of the moon, she noticed the figure walk over to the desk. They flicked through the papers before they began screwing up each of them and tossing them into the bin. They peeked through the drapes, and in the silver streak of the moonlight, Julia saw the long and flowing auburn hair.
Charlotte opened a bag and pulled out a variety of different items and laid them on the desk. When she was finished, she began throwing something from a bottle around the room. Before Julia could try and figure out what it was, she smelt the petrol, her hand clenching her nose and mouth.
A match crunched across a piece of sandpaper, and a flame illuminated her soft pale face. She looked down blankly at the bin before dropping the flame. It landed on the soaked paper and immediately engulfed itself. Charlotte stared down into the flickering yellow light for a moment before turning on her heels, tossing the empty petrol bottle on the bed, and walking out of the bedroom.
The second she heard the door close, Julia burst out of the closet and ran into the bathroom. She looked around for something to fill with water, landing on a copper bedpan, which was attached to the wall like a piece of art. She yanked it off and instantly filled it. With the pan of water, she ran back into the bedroom as the flames started to lick at the drapes. She tossed the water, and with a sizzle, darkness swallowed the room again.
“What the -,” she heard Sue cry, followed by the screeching of coat hangers, and a heavy thud.
Julia dropped the bedpan with a clang and ran over to the closet. Through the dim light, she could just make out the shape of Sue on the floor. It took Julia a moment to realise what was wrong with where Sue was placed in the pile of clothes until she realised she was too far back.
“Another secret door,” Julia exclaimed as she helped Sue up off the floor. “Oh, Sue, you’re a genius! That’s how they got away.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Sue cried as she accepted Julia’s hand. “I tripped over the train of my dress. Maybe you’re right about heels being dangerous.”
Julia pushed back the clothes and they both stood side by side looking beyond the secret wooden panel and down into the dark winding stone staircase. A cold draft licked at their faces as they clung to each other, neither of them saying a word.
“Shall we see where it leads?” Sue whispered, her voice shaking. “You go first.”
“I think I know where it leads,” Julia whispered back. “C’mon, we have a dinner to attend.”
“Are you joking?” Sue cried as they both stepped out of the closet. “That madwoman just tried to set fire to us!”
“She didn’t know we were in here,” Julia said as she walked over to the desk and pulled back the drapes. “Here, look at this.”
The items Charlotte had put on the desk were a whisky decanter, a crystal tumbler, an old mobile phone, and a pair of wire cutters.
“I don’t get it,” Sue mumbled as she squinted into the dark. “It’s just random stuff.”
“No, it points to one person,” Julia said as she pressed a button on the phone to light up the screen. “Andrew McCracken. Look, a picture of the castle as the background wallpaper. Andrew loves this place more than anybody, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Charlotte is trying to frame him for burning it down.”
“Why would she want to do that?” Sue asked, shaking her head. “I thought Charlotte loved this place?”
“Charlotte wanted this place,” Julia corrected her. “Now that she’s got it, she can do what she wants with it.”
“Like burning it to the ground?” Sue mumbled as she rested the back of her hand on her forehead. “I feel dizzy.”
“It’s the petrol fumes,” Julia said. “We should get out of here. Gran will be wondering where we are.”
“Julia,” Sue said, grabbing her hand. “Remember that thing I wanted to tell you before we came to Scotland. God, it feels so long ago now.”
“You’re choosing right now to tell me?”
Sue stumbled back a little and reached out for Julia. She rested her hand on her stomach as she inhaled deeply.
“Sue?” Julia said as she dragged her through to the dark bathroom. “What’s wrong?”
Julia flicked on the light, and Sue perched on the edge of the white freestanding bathtub. Sue’s dress ruffled up, collecting around her stomach. She went to smooth it down, but the dress didn’t entirely flatten under her hand.
“My life flashed before my eyes when I saw those flames,” Sue whispered as she looked down at her stomach. “If we had died then, I couldn’t have lived with myself for not telling you.”
“You’re pregnant,” Julia mumbled for the second time that day.
Sue nodded, tears collecting in the corner of her eyes as a smile spread from cheek to cheek.
“I wanted to tell you, I just didn’t know how,” Sue said with a laugh as she burst into tears. “You know me and Neil have been trying for years, and I didn’t want to jinx it. It’s only early days, but I have the tiniest bump, and it’s going to start showing soon.”
Julia wrapped her hands around Sue and pulled her into the tightest hug of their lives. She felt their heartbeats sync up with the life between them, the emotion of it overwhelming her.
“That’s amazing,” Julia whispered into her sister’s ear. “I’m so happy for you. I love you.”
“I love you too, Auntie Julia.”
They both laughed for a moment before pulling away from the hug. They wiped their mascara streaks with tissue paper, before joining hands and walking back through the bedroom with their hands over their mouths and noses.
“A baby is the beginning of all things,” Julia said as they walked back towards Henry’s door. “Not just for you.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Julia said as they slipped out into the hall. “Can I borrow your phone first? I need to make a call.”
14
Julia, Dot, and Sue were sat on one side of the table, with the four new guests on the other side, flickering candles and mountains of food separating them. Julia made sure to sit right in the middle so that she was directly be
tween Charlotte and Rory, both of whom kept glancing awkwardly at the ornate doors every time they opened.
Julia, on the other hand, found herself checking the bookcase where she now knew the peephole was, hoping her hastily made plan had come together in time. After a starter of tomato soup and a full roast dinner for the main course, her stomach was almost as full as her mind.
“This is all very delicious,” Dot remarked to Charlotte, who was sitting right by her. “It’s been too long since I’ve had a really good three-course meal.”
“Four courses,” Charlotte corrected her. “Well, that’s if you count the cheeseboard and wine at the end, which I do.”
Charlotte smiled politely before taking a sip of her wine. Her eyes darted to Julia, but they didn’t stay for long before landing on her brother. They both shared a small grin for a moment, before glancing to the doors in unison.
The waiters, including Blair, hurried in to clear the table before the dessert was served. Blair appeared to be still ignoring Julia, but that could have been because she was rushed off her feet trying to prepare and serve nine people four courses, even if she did have help.
“I’d like to make a toast,” Charlotte exclaimed as she tapped her fork against her wine glass. “As you all know, this week has been testing, to say the least. Our family has been to hell and back, but sometimes you need to go to hell to realise what is important to you.”
Julia and Sue rolled their eyes at each other, while the guests across the table seemed to be lapping it up. One of the women even dabbed at the corner of her eye with a napkin.
“Seirbigh Castle will fight to see another day,” Charlotte said, raising her glass in the air. “To Seirbigh.”
“And to Seirbigh’s new owner,” Rory said with a wink as he tipped his glass in his sister’s direction. “Cheers.”
