‘We should check that, if only to be thorough. If he’s not there then I think we can safely assume he’s somewhere warm. Frankly, I’m too cold to care any more.’ Bill nodded his assent and they turned the horses across the ice-crunching grass towards the lake.
The boathouse was as baronial as the main house but tiny, just large enough to hold a couple of rowing boats for paddling around on the water during summer afternoons. The tall wooden doors that opened onto the lake were tightly closed, the water lapping beneath them into the dock. Round the back, the smaller door was ajar and the interior as dark as pitch. Bill slid down from his horse while Tessa held the reins, waiting for him to hurry back so that they could turn for home. Tessa called out but no voice replied and so Bill pushed open the door, standing back slightly to let the weak sunlight in, just to confirm what they already knew. Tessa shivered, looking forward to warming up by the fire and calculating that they were about fifteen minutes away from enjoying that comfort.
‘Bloody hell.’
‘What is it? Have you found him?’ Tessa shed her stirrups and dismounted quickly. She pushed into the doorway, squinting in the darkness to see what Bill had seen. He put an arm around her shoulders as if to edge her away.
‘Don’t look, Tess. Trust me.’
As she spoke, her eyes fell on the sight he wanted to protect her from. A few feet inside the door, slumped against the wall in his evening dress, the snowy shirt front spattered with scarlet, was James. His eyes were open, unseeing, and the cruel black hole in his right temple told them what had happened, as did the pistol at his side.
Tessa stepped back, leaning against the wall to steady herself. Her stomach clenched and she thought she’d throw up, memories of all the bodies she’d seen before crowding in. She closed her eyes and breathed as deeply as she could, concentrating on controlling her responses, desperate not to let those memories fill her mind.
‘I’ve checked. I’m afraid he’s dead.’ Bill’s words as he returned to her side, wiping his hands on a handkerchief, were unnecessary. ‘He sounded angry last night, but this…’ He broke off, shaking his head.
‘What do you think happened?’ Tessa needed someone else to tell her what she already knew.
‘Well, you can see – the gun by his side, the deserted spot where no-one would hear the shot.’
‘He was fine when he came home.’ Tessa took a deep breath. ‘Coping, at any rate. It takes some getting used to for everyone, but I didn’t think I needed to lock up the guns and knives.’
‘People can hide their feelings well. Something was obviously very wrong. We’ll need to telephone the police.’
‘Really? Not just a doctor?’
‘Not for suicide. One of us should stay here and the other go back to the house.’ He looked at her questioningly, not sure which was the lesser evil.
‘I’ll stay here with James. I should be with him. And I can’t face all the questions.’
‘Very well.’ Bill remounted. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
He took the reins of Tessa’s bay mare and rode away, chivvying the two horses into a brisk trot. Tessa took another deep breath. She felt less sick and her pulse had slowed. She was still shivering but the panic was ebbing away. Of all the possible outcomes of their search for James, this had not crossed her mind. She’d expected to find him cursing and cold because he’d tripped into a ditch. After she and Bill had ridden for a while, she’d revised that, thinking, maybe, he was reading peacefully by the fire, or, more probably, he was with one of the endless procession of women willing to warm his bed. Finding him dead, and by suicide, was hard to comprehend.
Tessa leaned against the outside wall, head bent as she took deep breaths. Something was niggling at the back of her mind, something she’d seen when she’d glimpsed the body but which hadn’t registered fully. She pushed the boathouse door open, wider this time to let some of the weak winter sun in to illuminate the body of her dead husband, and stepped inside.
The bullet’s entry wound was small and neat, belying the damage it had caused and she knew that on the other side of his head, the side she was grateful not to be able to see in the darkness, the devastation would be horrific. Bill had closed James’s eyes and she wondered whether people did that to spare themselves the horror or to give the dead their privacy, lest their eyes give away their secrets.
And then it struck her, a memory of James on a grouse moor, raising his gun as a bird flew over. His right hand steadied the barrel, his left hand supported the stock, finger curled around the trigger.
She looked down at his body. The gun was lying by James’s right hand and the gunshot wound was in his right temple. However desperate and despairing he might have felt, she couldn’t imagine that a left-handed man would shoot himself using his right hand. Which meant someone else had pulled that trigger.
Tessa froze, every nerve-ending alive to the horror of her realisation as questions flooded her mind. Who could have wanted him dead, who here could do such a thing? And why? She now knew her husband to be a philanderer, but most people found him charming and witty and he was well-liked. The only person she could think of with a reason to want him dead was herself. After all, they’d argued the night before within earshot of twenty witnesses.
And where was the murderer now? Without knowing his motive, she couldn’t know if James was intended to be the only victim.
The back of her neck prickled; she had a growing sense that she was being watched. There was a movement behind her in the shrubs that flanked the boathouse and she spun round to face whatever approached.
Chapter Four
Unable to open the park gates while leading one horse and riding another, Bill slid down to wrestle the latch open, and hurried up the drive on foot, the horses pulling and skittering around him, already unsettled by the smell of blood at the boathouse. He yelled for help and a groom, hearing the flying gravel and shouts, came running around from the back of the house. Bill didn’t wait to hand the horses over, leaving the groom to catch their trailing reins as he barged into the house, calling for his host: Toby; the butler; a housemaid; anyone.
‘Where’s the telephone?’
‘I say Henderson, where’s the fire?’ Toby appeared from the library, coffee cup still in hand.
‘The telephone? We need to call the police.’
‘Really? What on earth has happened?’
‘It’s James. Tessa and I found him. He’s topped himself and I’ve left her down there at the boathouse with him, with the body.’
‘Good God. Poor James, that’s dreadful. Are you quite sure?’ Toby seemed unable to grasp the urgency Bill felt, happy to leave Tessa alone with her dead husband for a little longer while he got a full explanation. ‘I know Tessa found out last night that he’d been playing away, but surely he wasn’t upset enough to top himself. Then again, she’s got a sharp tongue. Who knows what she might have threatened to do? She could have made things very difficult. On the whole though, I’d have thought he’d have been relieved. I mean, Tessa’s not exactly…’ His voice tailed off.
‘I don’t care why he did it right now, Toby. We just need to telephone the police and a doctor.’ Bill fought hard to resist the urge to punch the other man. ‘I’ve left Tessa with him and she’s upset. No matter what happened last night, this is her husband.’
‘I suppose so. I’ll go and summon them.’ Toby disappeared off the hall, finally doing as he was told, and Bill looked out of the window.
Bill wasn’t at all sure that he should have left Tessa with James’s body. Someone had to stay, it would have felt wrong to leave him, but he wondered how this would affect her. She had told him that she still had occasional nightmares, although the flashbacks seemed to have gone away. But the uncompromising nature of James’s death, even if different to what she was used to seeing, was shocking.
‘Well, our local doctor is on his way and so is the village bobby.’ Toby returned, looking pleased with himself at having completed su
ch decisive actions. ‘They weren’t happy at all, but I told them they needed to come at once. A war hero like James deserves their immediate attention, and all that.’
‘I doubt James is at all bothered how quickly they turn out. Tessa though, she shouldn’t be left alone for longer than necessary.’
‘No, no, you’re quite right, old chap. James said she was a bit hysterical sometimes since the war.’ Toby shook his head, as if this confirmed his belief that women shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near conflict. That was man’s work – although he’d stayed at home on his farm, and the nearest he’d got to fighting had been having a prisoner of war to work on his land.
‘She has reason to be a little fragile at times. Ask her to show you her medals sometime.’ Bill picked up his gloves. ‘I’m going back to the boathouse. Make sure you send them along as soon as they get here.’
And he left, stopping in the hall to take an overcoat and scarf from the hooks, not sure and not caring whose they were.
As he walked back to the boathouse, he realised that Toby would not be the only one to think that Tessa had somehow driven James to do this. He couldn’t see it though. James was too selfish to allow Tessa’s pain to affect him that much. He would have shrugged off their argument, even their divorce, and concentrated on the opportunities that life as a single man in possession of a title and substantial wealth would afford him. No, to do this, James must have been haunted by something that no-one had suspected.
Chapter Five
Numb with cold and shock, Tessa waited for Bill. The rustling in the bushes that had so startled her had turned out to be a pheasant, and although she told herself that James’s killer was long gone and wouldn’t risk being spotted, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. So she stood with her back to the wall, scanning the parkland, looking for danger.
After about half an hour, Tessa saw Bill striding back towards her. His gait was now barely affected by the wound he’d sustained in France. Odd details like that seemed sharper somehow; a way of distracting her from the sadness and horror that lay behind her in the boathouse. Bill’s pace was brisk and Toby, their ineffectual host, had to scuttle to keep up.
‘The local doctor and the village constable are on their way.’ Bill handed Tessa the overcoat.
‘Thanks. Do we need the doctor? He’s rather redundant, I’d have thought.’
‘We do. There will need to be a post mortem and so forth. And he’ll need to sign a death certificate.’
‘Oh my goodness, Tessa. This is dreadful.’ Toby arrived, flushed and flustered. ‘What can have made James do such a thing? I’m sure he wasn’t that upset last night.’
Tessa shrugged and tried not to take offence, surmising Toby didn’t think that the break-up of their marriage was enough to upset his friend. Bill shook his head and she realised that this probably wasn’t Toby’s first unfortunate comment.
‘I think we need to let the bobby and the doctor take a look and then discuss what happened later.’ Bill spoke firmly, in his most officer-like tones. ‘Why don’t you go back and wait for them at the house, Toby? You can point them in this direction when they arrive. We’ll come and get warm after that, and you can ask questions then.’
Tessa watched Toby walk away, still muttering to himself about how dreadful this was. Once he was safely out of earshot, she beckoned Bill over to the boathouse door.
‘Look at his body. What do you notice?’
‘Don’t look again, Tessa. Torturing yourself like this won’t help.’ He laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘Look.’ She shook him off and shoved the door open as wide as it would go, the better to let the weak winter light in. ‘You see where he shot himself? Look which hand the gun is near.’
‘His right. Tessa, you can see what happened.’
‘He was left-handed, Bill. If he was going to kill himself, he wouldn’t be thinking about using his other hand. He’d automatically hold the gun in his left.’
‘Probably, but—’
‘He didn’t kill himself, Bill. Someone else shot him.’
Bill shook his head and reached inside to pull the door closed. Tessa stepped back, the enormity of what had happened striking her afresh.
‘But who’d do that, Tessa? No-one here would want to kill him, however much of an idiot they thought he was.’
‘Who knows?’ Another thought struck Tessa. ‘I’d just discovered that he was having an affair. I’m the only person that I can think of who has a motive. Surely no-one else here does?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Bill was impatient, wanting serious consideration from her instead of borderline hysteria. ‘Here’s the constable. We’ll talk about this later, when we’re on our own. Tell him it’s murder if you must, but keep any talk of motive to yourself. The last thing we want is for him to arrest you.’
They looked across to where the constable, closely followed by the doctor, was making his way down the slope of the park. Both inspected James’s body and listened to Tessa’s assertion that he had not taken his own life, despite appearances. The constable looked worried, and she guessed that murder was not a common crime in rural Fife. The doctor was more sceptical, pointing out that he probably knew more than her about gunshot injuries.
‘I doubt it, doctor. I saw all sorts of injuries during the war.’
‘I’ll have to telephone to Edinburgh. We’ll need a detective if it turns out to be a murder.’ He might privately accede to Tessa’s judgement but he wasn’t willing to acknowledge it openly.
‘How long will he take to arrive?’ Tessa was desperate to warm up. The sky might be blue and clear, but the January sunlight was thin and watery, insufficient to melt the hoar frost that still feathered the blades of grass.
‘An hour or two. More, possibly.’ The constable sounded despondent, aware that it would be a long time before he was back by his fireside.
The three men arranged that the doctor would remain at the boathouse while the others returned to the house. Once the Edinburgh police had been summoned, the constable would take over guard duties.
Walking back, all made the mental adjustment from the futility and sadness of suicide to the unknown fear that murder brought. Who could have killed him? Everyone at the house party was a friend of James, or so Tessa had thought. Someone evidently wasn’t. Had he unceremoniously ended his affair with Caroline just after Tessa had left him in the library? Was he frustrated that his indiscretion had led to Tessa’s decision to divorce him? Tessa shook her head, sure that he would have been equivocal about the outcome, if not actually pleased. As would Caroline. As far as Tessa knew, she was unmarried, so there would be no jealous spouse or jilted lover out for James’s blood.
Back at the house, some of the guests had already departed, and when they went inside, another couple were assembling their luggage and saying their farewells. Tessa didn’t remember their names. He had done something behind a desk at the Ministry of Agriculture during the war, and although his wife had tried to engage Tessa in conversation, she had little to talk about beyond her children, schools and the difficulty of getting staff in the country. The couple, clearly aware what had been discovered in the boathouse, shot covert glances in Tessa’s direction, but neither spoke. As far as they knew, she was the woman who had told her husband that she wanted a divorce, pushing him over the edge and driving him to his tragic suicide. Bill took her elbow, steering her away from their curiosity.
On the last turn of the stairs, a figure stopped dead, catching Tessa’s eye. It was Caroline. The two women looked at each other for a moment, both expressionless, both unsure how to react. The socially acceptable thing would be for Caroline to offer her condolences, for Tessa to accept with as much grace as she could possibly muster and for there to be no acknowledgement of what had gone on only twelve hours of so earlier. That would be hypocritical, but Tessa hoped that the other woman would keep her sentiments to herself. She was wrong.
‘Tessa, I heard wha
t happened. I’m so terribly sorry about last night—’ Caroline’s voice broke, but unable to listen to excuses, or sympathies or mea culpas, Tessa turned on her heel and walked away. She wanted to scream at Caroline, to tell her that she should have rejected James’s advances. If only they’d been more discreet Tessa wouldn’t have caught them; if Tessa hadn’t had that dreadful, final, row with James, then he might not have gone out into the night and met with whatever malevolence had been waiting for him.
Bill fell back, asking a housemaid to bring coffee, but Tessa kept walking down the hall, desperate to be able to close the door and shut out all the awkward silences and suspicious stares. The library was an attractive room with bookcases and a sofa in front of the fire, and it was several seconds before she remembered that this room had also been the setting for the disintegration of her marriage the previous evening. She sighed, too drained to care, and shed her outer layers while Bill stirred the fire into life.
‘So what do you think happened?’ Bill’s tone was careful, and Tessa looked up to see a wary look in his eyes. Perhaps it had even crossed his mind that she might have shot James.
‘Right now, I have no idea.’
Tessa was pretty sure that Bill didn’t seriously think she might be the guilty party. Who else would believe her though? A dozen or more guests and servants must have heard at least part of her argument with James the previous evening. She had told Bill that they intended to part, but who else might have heard them talking by the fire in that darkened room? A wronged wife exacting revenge on a philandering husband was far from inconceivable. Jealousy was one of the oldest motives for murder. Tessa had motive, but no alibi and everyone here knew that she was familiar with guns. The only thing in her favour was that she would have known he was left-handed. It was hardly conclusive evidence of her innocence.
Death Will Find Me (A Tessa Kilpatrick Mystery, Book 1) Page 3
