Murder at Standing Stone Manor

by Eric Brown

  ‘Nancy, surely she would have taken it herself, wouldn’t she?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘No … No, you see, my uncle locked the medication away from her. I think he feared that … that when my aunt was depressed, that she might … Anyway, I really should go!’

  She made to stand up, but Maria restrained her.

  ‘You’re not going back there tonight with Randall in his cups and acting so dreadfully.’ She made a decision. ‘I’ll go. I’ll pop across, pick up your toothbrush and some clothes – tell me what you need – and then I’ll make sure Xandra takes her medication.’

  ‘Would you? Would you do that?’ The girl looked pathetically grateful.

  ‘The medication: where will I find it and what does she take?’

  ‘She takes two pills every morning, some kind of painkiller, and at night two sleeping pills. I’m sure it’ll be all right if she has the painkillers now. All the medication is locked in a cupboard above the basin in the en suite bathroom next to her bedroom. The key to the cupboard is hidden on a hook at the back of an airing cupboard next to the bath.’

  ‘The painkillers – are they clearly marked?’

  ‘They’re in a small brown bottle,’ Nancy said. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t recall what they’re called.’

  ‘And the sleeping pills? Does she always take them?’

  ‘Most nights, yes. They’re in a clear glass bottle next to the painkillers.’

  Maria wondered what kind of mood Randall might be in, considering his earlier drunken display of bellicosity. She hoped that she could complete what she had to do without coming across the young man.

  ‘Will the front door be open?’

  ‘It should be. But if it isn’t, my uncle kept a spare key in the garage to the right of the house. It’ll be hanging on a nail to the left of the door.’

  Nancy listed the items of clothing she needed and where to find them, and Maria fetched a hessian bag from the pantry.

  ‘And Donald won’t be angry when he comes in and sees me?’

  Maria laughed and crouched down before the forlorn girl. ‘Angry? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Donald get seriously angry about anything. Do you know what he’ll say?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘He’ll say, and these will be his exact words: “Delighted you can stay, old girl!” And he’ll mix you a stiff gin and tonic and make you feel at home. He has a wonderful way of putting people at their ease.’

  Nancy stared down at her mug. ‘You obviously love him.’

  Maria smiled. ‘More than anything. And talking about love … You’re a dark horse, my girl. How long have you and Roy really known each other?’

  Nancy blushed. ‘It was Roy. He said not to tell anyone, you and Donald or the Wellbournes. He was afraid it would get back to Randall and my uncle, and there’d be hell to pay and they’d stop us seeing each other, and that would be terrible.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘It happened so gradually, last summer. I saw him when I went out walking Bill, and once or twice Roy would come with me part of the way, and we got talking … And, oh, it was so wonderful to have someone …’ She faltered, colouring to the roots of her golden curls. ‘It was just nice that someone took an interest in me,’ she went on in a murmur. ‘He told me all about his life before the war in Norfolk, and I told him about boarding school, and what happened to Mum and Dad, and he was so … he just seemed to understand me. He was so sympathetic. You don’t know what it was like to have someone take an interest in me as a person. Life at the manor had been all right, but I didn’t have any real friends in the village – only Bill! – and then Roy came along.’ She shrugged. ‘I love him, and nothing Randall can say or do will stop me from loving him.’

  Maria squeezed her hand. ‘Good for you, Nancy. Help yourself to more tea while I’m gone. I shan’t be long.’

  Nancy looked up. ‘Thanks ever so. I promise not to be a nuisance while I’m here, and Bill says he’ll be on his best behaviour.’

  Maria laughed. ‘I’m sure he will.’

  She moved to the kitchen, pulled on her coat and boots, and let herself out of the back door.

  SEVENTEEN

  There was no street lighting along Crooked Lane, but the snow-covered track was illuminated by a gibbous moon. Maria picked her way carefully through the snow, crunching through the thick ice of frozen puddles. The night was silent; even the wind had abated. From far off, very occasionally, she heard the hoot of an owl.

  She hurried over the bridge and turned up the driveway to the manor, hoping she could give Xandra her medication, gather Nancy’s things and leave without bumping into Randall Robertshaw.

  There were no lights burning behind any of the windows along the facade of the manor house, and the front door was locked. Rather than knock and have Randall answer, she moved to the garage to the right of the drive and pulled open the door. She found a single key hanging on a nail to the left of the door, as Nancy had described, then returned to the house and let herself in.

  As she crept across the darkened hallway, she realized that she was giving a very good impression of a cat burglar. If Randall, still drunk and in possession of his shotgun, was to discover her now …

  She crossed to the stairs. She heard the distant sound of a voice – Randall, she thought, talking to himself or speaking to someone on the phone – and further along the corridor made out a wedge of orange light spilling from a partially open door.

  She climbed the stairs, thankful that they were constructed of solid, aged timber that no longer creaked, then ascended the narrow staircase to Nancy’s room. She found her toothbrush and toothpaste on the basin in the corner, then went through the drawers and collected the clothing the girl had asked for. She considered packing the threadbare teddy bear, too, but there was no room in her hessian bag.

  She descended to the first floor, moved along the passage until she came to Xandra’s room, then paused, listening. There was no sound from within, but a line of light showed at the foot of the door.

  She turned the handle, eased open the door and peered in.

  Xandra lay in her bed in a pair of pink pyjamas, the sheet thrown back despite the chill of the room. She lay on her side, her face towards the door, fast asleep. A small, shaded lamp burned on the bedside table.

  Maria moved across the room to the adjoining bathroom. She located the light switch, closed the door carefully behind her, then turned on the light.

  She found a small silver key at the back of the airing cupboard, then moved to the sink and unlocked the cabinet door to reveal a bottle of aspirin, a buckled tube of antiseptic ointment and a box of corn plasters. There were no sleeping pills or painkillers in evidence.

  She looked around the bathroom for another cupboard but, aside from the airing cupboard, this was the only one. Above the bath was a shelf arrayed with various shampoos, emollients, sprays and unopened tablets of soap, but no sleeping pills or other drugs.

  She made a meticulous search of the room and found nothing.

  The only answer that occurred to her was that Xandra had taken the bottle of painkillers and administered them herself. And the sleeping pills?

  Maria returned to the bedroom and crept across to the sleeping woman. On the bedside table was the lamp, an alarm clock and a book of crossword puzzles. She examined the bedspread and the sheets beside the woman, then the floor beside the bed. There was no sign of either sleeping pills or painkillers. She did find, however, tucked down the back of the pillow, an empty brandy bottle and a small glass. Xandra had evidently self-medicated.

  She was in the process of drawing the sheets over the woman’s shoulders when Xandra opened her eyes blearily and murmured, ‘Nancy … Good girl …’

  ‘Go to sleep,’ Maria said in her softest voice.

  ‘You’re the only one who …’ Xandra was half asleep, her eyes closed, and Maria caught the reek of spirits on her breath.

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘… the only one who really cares.’ Sh
e tried to sit up.

  ‘Go to sleep now.’

  Maria crept away, and Xandra collapsed back on to the pillow.

  She slipped from the room, closed the door behind her and leaned against it, a sudden thought occurring to her. What if Xandra had taken the pills – the sleeping pills and the painkillers – along with the brandy in response to her husband’s death?

  Despite her earlier desire to avoid Randall Robertshaw, now she thought it best if she found him and communicated her concern. She hurried down the stairs, along the corridor, and came to the open door behind which the orange light glowed. She knocked, waited a second for a summons which never came, then pushed open the door.

  Randall sat slumped in an armchair before the fire, legs outstretched, staring dolefully into the glowing embers. Only then did Maria take in the state of the room. She assumed it was the professor’s study, with his desk situated before the French windows and shelves laden with calf-bound volumes. She noticed the papers piled on and spilling from the desk, the drawers pulled open and their contents tumbled. Books had been pulled from the shelves and thrown across the floor; several paintings on the walls hung askew, and three or four had been removed entirely.

  She stepped uncertainly into the room.

  Randall stirred and looked up. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snapped.

  ‘I’m worried about your mother.’

  ‘I said, what the hell are you doing—?’

  ‘Nancy sent me. She hadn’t administered your mother’s medication – thanks in no small part to you. So I came to check on her.’

  ‘What the hell are you maundering on about?’ Randall shouted. He seemed less drunk than hungover and truculent now.

  She crossed the room and stood over him. ‘Your mother needs her medication, but it’s no longer in the bathroom cabinet.’

  The young man blinked at her, as if attempting to assimilate this information.

  He waved. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  As if addressing an imbecile, she said, ‘Your mother’s just lost her husband. A jar of sleeping pills and some other medication has vanished. Will you please get it into your addled mind that there’s a distinct possibility that she might have taken the pills along with the bottle of brandy she’s emptied since this afternoon.’

  He heard her out, an infuriating smirk playing on his lips. ‘I doubt my mother would do anything so foolish.’

  ‘Your doubt, in this case, might be all it takes to consign your mother to a painful death. If I were you – if you don’t want to lose two parents within twenty-four hours – I’d get up there and wake her up.’

  He sighed dramatically. ‘What on earth makes you so certain she’s taken an overdose?’

  ‘I’m not certain, you fool. I’m worried about the possibility that she might have – as you should be. If you don’t wake her up and ask her, then I will.’

  He sighed again and, as if ordered to carry out a Sisyphean task, pushed himself reluctantly upright and strode from the room.

  She followed him up the staircase and along the corridor to his mother’s bedroom.

  He opened the door, turned to Maria and said, ‘Wait there,’ then slammed the door in her face.

  She paced back and forth, occasionally pausing before the door and listening. She heard the sound of Randall’s voice, cajoling, followed by Xandra’s confused replies. Once, she thought she heard what might have been a slap.

  She heard the bathroom door open, followed by the sound of running water. A silence followed. She paced again. As she neared the door, she heard the sound of raised voices, then silence.

  She heard another slap, and this time she quickly opened the door and stepped into the room.

  Xandra lay on the bed, Randall standing over her. A china washbowl sat on the floor beside the bed.

  Randall pointed to it. ‘There,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re satisfied. I made her sick – stuck a toothbrush down her throat. I’m delighted to report that she brought up nothing but brandy, and plenty of that. So … false alarm.’

  Maria examined the contents of the basin, finding only a thin gruel of regurgitated alcohol with no evidence of pills.

  Randall moved to leave the room. Maria reached out and gripped his upper arm, intensely disliking the young man and doing nothing to disguise her contempt as she said, ‘And what about the pills?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘According to Nancy, they were in the cabinet earlier. Now they’re gone.’

  ‘In that case,’ he snapped, ‘why don’t you ask your little friend where the damned things are? She looks after my mother, after all.’

  He shrugged himself from her grasp and stepped from the bedroom.

  Maria followed, closing the door quietly behind her. ‘She can hardly look after Xandra when you’ve thrown her out, can she?’

  At the top of the staircase, he turned and stared at her. ‘Xandra can look after herself. We don’t need Nancy, thank you.’

  He set off down the stairs. Exasperated, Maria followed him.

  ‘And your mother’s medication?’ she asked.

  At the bottom of the staircase, with a hand on the balustrade, he paused with his back to Maria, hanging his head as he considered his response. He turned and looked up at her. ‘Look, there’s a simple answer. The medication is finished and either my father or mother discarded the empty bottles. I’ll ask her in the morning, all right?’

  ‘Both bottles were finished at the same time?’ Maria asked doubtfully.

  He sighed. ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘When is your uncle due to come and see her again? Perhaps you should ring and inform him of what’s happened?’

  ‘Fine, yes. I’ll do that in the morning.’

  He turned and strode along the corridor to his father’s study.

  Maria paused, watching him go, then made up her mind to follow him.

  By the time she reached the study, he’d returned to his armchair before the fire. She stopped in the doorway, staring at him.

  He looked up. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Why did you throw Nancy out, Randall?’

  ‘Because she’s nothing but a pain. I can look after my mother without her help, and it’ll be one less mouth to feed, won’t it?’

  ‘Why do you hate the girl?’

  ‘“Hate” is going it a bit. Dislike intensely would be an adequate descriptor.’

  She shook her head, recalling what Nancy had told her about being friendly with Randall’s much put-upon ex-wife, but she resisted the urge to bring this up.

  Instead, she gestured around the room. ‘What happened here?’

  His eyes followed the sweep of her hand. ‘If you must know, I was looking for something,’ he said. ‘Some legal papers. You might recall that I lost my father last night, and I need to sort out his affairs.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ she said, facing him across the room. She hesitated, then said, ‘I wish you’d think again about Nancy.’

  ‘Thank you for that,’ he said in his infuriating fashion, ‘and if you’d kindly close the front door on the way out …’

  Biting back a reply, she left the study and hurried down the corridor. She slammed the front door behind her, replaced the key on the nail in the garage and made her way home.

  Donald had returned by the time she opened the back door and took off her hat and coat. She heard the comforting sound of his voice in the living room, followed by Nancy’s responsive laughter. She smiled to herself. Trust Donald to have jollied the girl out of her slough of despond.

  ‘What did I say?’ she said as she entered the room and saw the girl clutching a glass of gin and tonic.

  Donald said, ‘Just what she needed after all she’s been through, my darling. Nancy’s filled me in on the afternoon’s travails. A little drink before dinner?’

  ‘A big one,’ Maria said.

  ‘Coming up.’ He mixed her a gin and tonic.

  ‘How was m
y aunt?’ Nancy asked.

  Maria bit her lip. She took the glass, sat down on the sofa beside the girl and described what she’d found at the manor.

  Donald asked Nancy, ‘Are you sure that both sets of pills were in the bathroom cabinet?’

  ‘As I told Maria, my uncle took over responsibility for Xandra’s morning medication at the start of the year. Before that, I always kept the pills in the bathroom cabinet.’ She shrugged. ‘I assumed that’s where they’d be now.’

  Donald nodded. ‘Perhaps the professor had his own preferred place to keep them.’

  Maria said, ‘I must say, Randall’s attitude was rather cavalier. I more or less had to force him to go and check on his mother.’

  ‘At least she hadn’t swallowed anything … other than the brandy,’ Nancy said.

  Donald considered his drink. ‘Do you know if Xandra can go without her painkillers for a day or so?’

  ‘Last year they ran out for a time,’ Nancy said. ‘She gritted her teeth and battled through.’

  Donald was leafing through his notebook. ‘I made a note of Spencer’s telephone number. It might be an idea to ring him and see what he says.’

  He crossed to the telephone stand in the corner of the room and dialled the number. Maria watched him as he listened impatiently to the dial tone, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

  After a minute he gave up. ‘No reply. I’ll try again first thing tomorrow. I shouldn’t worry if I were you, Nancy. We’ll sort it all out in the morning.’

  Over dinner, Donald changed the subject entirely and made Maria and Nancy laugh – and wince – with an account of his time in India during the war. Maria had heard many of the stories before but listened with a smile, loving Donald for his ability to take the girl’s mind off the tragedy of the day.

  After dinner, and another gin and tonic, Nancy let Bill out into the back garden, then thanked them for everything and said she’d better be turning in.