Scarlet Wakefield 02 - Kisses and Lies

by Lauren Henderson

  “My back did get awfully cold at dinner,” I admit.

  She purses her lips. “I bet your front got pretty cold as well. Lucy was doing her best ice queen stare at you. God, she annoys me. I’m worried that she’s got her hooks so far into Cal he’ll never get them out again.”

  Wow, maybe I won’t have to pry anything out of Catriona after all.

  “They’ve been going out for years, right?” I say, leaning forward to show how interested I am.

  Catriona leans forward too, conspiratorially.

  “Actually, she made a play for Dan at one stage, but he wasn’t having any. And I don’t think Cal ever realized. Dan wasn’t at all the type to have a steady girlfriend—not yet, anyway. So there wasn’t anything doing there. But now that Cal inherits—well, Lucy will never let him go. I’m sure that’s why she was after Dan in the first place.”

  My eyes widen. “You mean . . .”

  But I don’t need to make the suggestion: Catriona’s right there already, nodding away.

  “She’s in love with the idea of being the mistress of Castle Airlie,” she says. “I bet she danced for joy when Dan died. God, what airs she’d give herself! It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  “Why is she round here all the time?” I ask. “It’s almost like she lives here.”

  “I know.” Catriona rolls her eyes. “Frightful, isn’t it? Her dad lives in the village. He’s got a nice house there, but nothing half as grand as this. It’s sort of their country home—they’ve got a big place in London, too. Tons of money but not much class.”

  Catriona sounds very like my grandmother sometimes, I think.

  “Lucy says she doesn’t get on with her stepmother,” Catriona’s continuing.

  “Is she a bitch?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s just it. She seems perfectly harmless to me,” Catriona says. “I think Lucy makes up stories about her stepmum to get Mummy and Cal’s sympathy and give her an excuse to be round here all the time. Which, as you’ve pointed out, she is.” She sighs. “I keep telling myself Cal will go away to university and sow some wild oats, meet someone else, there’s nothing to worry about. But I’m sure Lucy will follow wherever he goes. And Cal’s the loyal type, more’s the pity. He’s loyal to Lucy now, even though I’m sure he can see what a nightmare she can be. I mean, she wasn’t even invited to dinner, and here she goes again, turning up and just expecting Moira to set a place for her! Mummy would say she’s always welcome, but Lucy behaves like she already lives here! Moira hates her,” she adds unexpectedly.

  “Really?” I widen my eyes. “Why’s that?”

  “Doesn’t think she’s good enough for Cal at all. Doesn’t want to see her running Castle Airlie—God, no. Moira always wanted Cal to inherit, you know.”

  “She sort of told me that,” I say.

  “Did she? She must like you,” Catriona comments. “Moira thought Dan would never settle down here, and I’m sure she was right. Dan was a complete playboy. He’d always rather be in London than stuck up here in the middle of nowhere—that’s how he saw it. When Mum and Dad got down to London after Dan died, and Moira met them, apparently the first thing she said was: ‘It’s a tragedy for the McAndrews but a boon for Castle Airlie.’ Mum was so upset she made Moira get the first train home.”

  I focus on the most important part of this whole story, the part that’s a clue.

  “Moira was in London when Dan died?” I ask, my ears pricking up.

  Catriona nods. “Visiting her cousins. They live there. But she never saw Dan. He was too busy partying. And all his friends were like Lucy, you know? I met them a few times. All just interested in having the latest cool things before they were in the magazines. They were in this total competition to get stuff first and show it off at clubs on the King’s Road. And when someone else got one too, they’d throw it away to anyone who’d take it and go out and buy something new instead. They were completely superficial. There was this one girl, Plum—God, she was an awful snob. I hated her. She pretty much ran the whole group.”

  “I used to be at school with her,” I say. “She’s so nasty I can’t even tell you.”

  “I’m sure. So you can see why I don’t want Cal settling down with someone who’s friends with people like that. Ugh. She’d fill the castle with them and invite photographers from Tatler. Horrid.”

  Catriona’s grimacing to indicate how much the thought distresses her. I can see how upsetting it would be. But I can’t exactly see her killing Dan to avoid his bringing Plum and her set up to Castle Airlie on a regular basis—as motives go, that’s the weakest one I’ve ever heard.

  And Moira? Moira, who was down in London when Dan died? Could Moira somehow have sneaked into Nadia’s party and poisoned the crisps, in an attempt to kill Dan so that Callum would inherit Castle Airlie? Wouldn’t she have stuck out like a sore thumb?

  Well, I think smugly, I’ve already planned the perfect way to find that out. . . .

  nineteen

  “ALL GIRLS LIKE JEWELRY”

  “It’s nice that some young people are still interested in history,” Mr. McAndrew says over his shoulder.

  He’s leading me up a narrow stone spiral staircase, and his words bounce around the walls, making his voice sound hollow and booming. There’s something honest and bluff about him that I like. You can tell how much he’s missing Dan by the tightness in his jaw, the sadness in his eyes. He really loved his son.

  I wouldn’t mind having a dad like Mr. McAndrew.

  “I’m doing history A level,” I lie. Damn, I’ve told so many of these, I’m losing track.

  “Well, if you’re studying anything to do with battles and sieges, this should be very useful,” he says as I reach the top of the steps.

  “Wow.” I glance around me. We’re at the top of one of the towers at the corners of Castle Airlie, and the view over the marshlands and the Irish Sea beyond is spectacular.

  “Look here,” Mr. McAndrew says, pointing to the windows. “They’re all narrow, so that the archers could fire on the attackers without being afraid they’d get shot themselves. Just room enough for a crossbow and a bit of space to sight your target.”

  I nod appreciatively, clutching my stomach. I just stuffed myself on the most enormous breakfast ever, and that climb straight afterward is making me feel slightly queasy. Castle Airlie actually has a room just for breakfast. It’s next to the kitchen and it’s got a lot of silver servers all lined up against one wall, like in a hotel—if you lift the lids there’s scrambled eggs, bacon, kippers (eww), fried potatoes, and grilled tomatoes. Yum. Plus, there was toast, butter, and five kinds of jam on the table, and big thermal jugs of coffee and tea. Despite it being pretty early—Mr. McAndrew had said to be ready at nine, so I got downstairs at eight-thirty—I ate so much I can barely breathe now. Big mistake.

  “Would they pour the boiling oil from here, too?” I ask.

  He laughs. “Imagine carrying a vat of oil up those narrow stairs. No, that was on the next level down. I’ll show you.”

  He heads down the staircase again. I follow, cursing the impulse that led me to ask that. I wanted just to stand still and digest for a while. Oh well, if Mr. McAndrew’s going to walk me round the entire castle, at least it’ll help me work off some of my breakfast. . . .

  He’s at the foot of the stairs, looking enthusiastic.

  “Dan loved everything about the sieges,” he says. “All the children did. They’d play games reenacting them for days and days and rope in all their friends. Look, here’s one of the oil slots.”

  He’s indicating the stone floor of the corridor, just below the window embrasure. I look down and my eyes widen. It’s a deep trough slanting down toward the wall, so you could wrestle a big barrel of hot oil into position and then tip it over so its contents went flooding down into the trough.

  “It used to be open to the outside, of course,” Mr. McAndrew’s saying. “So if invaders were on ladders against the walls, the oil would pour down on
their heads. But they were all bricked up a long time ago, because of drafts.” He chuckles. “Dan was very disappointed. He was a very bloodthirsty child. Thank God they were all closed, or he’d have been pouring things down there all the time.”

  “He sounds like he was a lot of fun,” I say.

  “Oh, he was a real scamp. Never serious for a moment, that was Dan.”

  I think about the Dan I briefly knew—always laughing and joking, seeming not to have a care in the world, and I can’t help smiling at the memory.

  Then I think about those photos I found in his room, trophies of the girls he’d been with, and my smile fades.

  “Would you like to see the dungeons?” he asks. “The children used to play there a lot too. And they’re quite dramatic, in a scary kind of way. Lots of gory tales about them.”

  He’s looking so enthusiastic that I can’t possibly say no.

  “I’d love to,” I say. “I’d really like to see as much as possible, actually.”

  Mr. McAndrew grins at me.

  “You know,” he says, “I’ve just thought of something I’m sure you’ll like to see.”

  Mr. McAndrew swings open a green baize-covered door and holds it for me. We go down a couple of flights of back stairs and into a stone-paved corridor. I’m trying to keep a map of the castle in my head, just so I have the faintest idea of where I am, but then he pushes open another door and we emerge in a corner of the Great Hall. This takes me completely aback, as I don’t even remember noticing a door in this corner before. Usually I have a good sense of direction, but Castle Airlie is completely confusing me.

  “Let’s just pop into the estate office on our way,” Mr. McAndrew’s saying. “I think you’ll find it worth the detour.”

  We cross the Hall and go through a big mahogany door on the far side of the fireplace. Beyond it is a further door, and Mr. McAndrew fishes in his pocket and pulls out a key ring.

  “I’m never in here on the weekends,” he says. “I have meetings here with my factor—he’s the one who really runs the estate—but it’s kept locked up out of office hours.” He smiles at me as he thumbs through the key ring, finds a Chubb key, and unlocks the door. “You’ll see why.”

  He pushes the door open and holds it for me.

  “So, do you like jewelry, Scarlett?” Mr. McAndrew chuckles to himself. “Silly question, isn’t it? All girls like jewelry.”

  “Um, yes, I suppose,” I say, unsure why he’s asking me this.

  Mr. McAndrew crosses the room and takes down a big oil painting of a stag at bay, revealing a big black safe set into the wall. He starts fiddling with the combination, his broad back concealing the lock, which gives me time to look around the room.

  It’s colder in here, as if it’s not heated on weekends. More oil paintings hang on the walls—mostly, I can tell, ones that aren’t considered good enough to be hung in more public areas of the house. There’s a huge old faded leather–topped desk, embossed in equally faded gold around the edges of the leather. It’s so big that it’s more like a table, with a pair of carved chairs, one on each side, so that two people could sit and work at it facing each other. A gilt-framed mirror hangs over the desk, its silvery glass discolored and tarnished with age.

  Next to me are a couple of big wooden chests of drawers, but the chests are really wide and the drawers are very narrow. I slide one out fractionally and see that it’s full of documents and old prints. My eyes widen: if I have to search through all these drawers and read the contents, I could be here for days. There’s a pile of brown card folders on the desk, and I scan them quickly. Nothing looks relevant to me; they’re all bills and invoices. But, beyond the desk, I notice another door, and, as quietly as I can, I cross the room and nudge it open. It’s a windowless storeroom lined with filing cabinets: above them are built-in shelves running right up to the ceiling, stacked with labeled boxes. This is exactly what I’m looking for.

  Behind me, I hear Mr. McAndrew is removing something from the safe, and by the time he’s turned round I’m back by the desk again, my most innocent expression on my face. He’s holding a dark red leather box, which I guess from what he just said has jewelry inside it. I expect glitter when he opens it, light striking diamond facets, but instead there’s a pale, subtle gleam. I gasp. It’s a pearl necklace: three strands of huge white pearls with what looks like a moonstone in the center rimmed with diamonds, and it sits there in its black velvet bed, glowing like the moon in the night sky.

  Mr. McAndrew, seeing my expression, chuckles again.

  “Spectacular, aren’t they?” he says. “They’ve been in the family for generations. They’re passed down to the wife of the current laird. Flora hardly ever wears them, though. Maybe for a Northern Meeting now and then.”

  I must have looked blank, because he adds:

  “That’s a ball with Highland dancing—reels, mostly. Tons of fun and very good exercise, you’re jumping around all night. We have them here sometimes, in the ballroom.”

  An expression of such sadness momentarily settles on his face that I know, without being told, he’s thinking that if Dan were still alive, they’d be having a ball for his and Callum’s birthday. He sighs, as if he’s pushing the thought away from him, and says:

  “Callum’s wife will inherit them one day. I hope she’ll wear them more than Flora does. Flora thinks they’re too big for her—she’s quite fine-boned. And Catriona has the same build, so she’s never cared for them either. We should get them restrung, I suppose. Pearls should be worn, you know.”

  “My grandmother says that,” I chime in, glad that I have something to contribute to the subject. “She hardly ever takes hers off. She says they need the oil in your skin to stay shiny.”

  “Good girl,” Mr. McAndrew says, smiling down at me. “Glad to see that some members of the younger generation know about caring for beautiful things. Lucy’s always after me to borrow the pearls for a Northern Meeting, but I regretfully have to say no. They cost so much to insure, we’re only covered if a member of the family is wearing them. Want to try them on?”

  Speechless, I can only nod. He picks up the triple strand of pearls, comes behind me, and places it around my neck, clicking the clasp shut at my nape.

  “They weigh so much!” I exclaim unguardedly. It feels like a pound of weight around my neck, cold and heavy and smooth as silk. I catch sight of myself in the mirror that hangs over the desk, and my eyes widen. Despite the fact that I’m wearing a sweater and jeans, with no makeup on, the pearls transform me. My eyes are huge and dark and luminous; my skin, pale from lack of sun, glows in the reflected light from the pearls; and my hair, piled up on top of my head with a big silver clip, almost looks, in the tarnished glass of the mirror, as if it’s a proper style—as if I’ve had my hair put up so I could go to a ball.

  My hand lifts to touch the necklace. I can’t believe how magical it is. In one stroke, it’s made me beautiful.

  “You look very pretty, Scarlett,” Mr. McAndrew says gruffly.

  “My grandmother says you should wear pearls close to the face,” I say, “because they’re really flattering.”

  He chuckles. “My mother used to say the same thing,” he says, “but what she meant was they make you look younger. Not something you’re in need of right now.” He smiles at me. “Right, I’d better take those off you before you get too used to them.”

  No! I scream inside. I never want to take these off! But I stand there reluctantly as Mr. McAndrew undoes the clasp. The pearls slide off my neck slowly, heavy and slippery, as if they don’t want to leave either.

  “There’s a matching tiara, too,” he adds, coiling the pearls carefully back into their velvet nest. Seeing my expression, he bursts out laughing. “Shut your mouth, young lady, or you’ll catch flies in it!”

  I see in the mirror what he means—I am gawping at the idea of myself wearing the necklace and crowned with a pearl tiara. I’d look like a princess. Or Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. But though the p
earls are incredibly distracting, the cogs in my brain are still spinning, working out what I need to do to get access to those filing cabinets. . . .

  “Women and jewelry—it’s like a drug, isn’t it?” jokes Mr. McAndrew, taking the jewelry box back to the safe. As soon as he turns his back, my hand darts out, and I tear a strip of card from one of the card-folder covers, choosing one at the bottom so no one will notice straightaway that it’s torn.

  Mr. McAndrew closes the door and turns the lock shut. “Even the young girls,” he continues. “Take them to a museum and they’ll walk straight past every other exhibit to coo and cluck over the shiny things.”

  Okay, he’s teasing me, but it’s in a nice way. It feels sort of like something your dad would say to you jokingly. I quite like it. No one ever talks to me like this.

  And as he does, I’m quickly folding the strip of card back and forth on itself, so it’s a bent strip of accordion pleats.

  He hangs the picture back over the safe and turns to me. I palm the folded piece of card in my right hand.

  “Well, there’s nothing more to see here,” he says. “Just boring old documents. Want to see the dungeons now?”

  “Ooh, yes,” I say enthusiastically, following him to the door. As usual, he holds it for me. I start to go through it, and then I stop and exclaim:

  “Oh, do you have a cat? I love cats.”

  “A cat? No,” Mr. McAndrew says, baffled.

  I point down the corridor.

  “I’m sure I saw something move down there. . . . It couldn’t have been a rat, could it?”

  As I hoped, this instantly galvanizes Mr. McAndrew. He shoots off down the corridor, letting the door fall against me, and as it does I take the folded-up piece of card and press it into the tongue of the door lock so the pleats open up a bit, creating a sort of basic spring. Then I ease the door shut, praying desperately that this trick, which I read about in a book years ago, will actually work. It’s very lucky for me that this is a spring lock, rather than the Yale kind where the metal tongue slides back and forth when the key’s turned.