“Not a fan of the art world?” another asked.
“A novice, is all.”
“So, what do you do, Max?” the older of the ladies inquired.
“I’m an inspector,” I told them.
“Really? A detective inspector?” She looked thrilled.
“Yes.”
“How delightful.” Nice to see someone thinks so.
“I take it, you are not overly accustomed to events such as these?” another of the men asked.
“Not really, but anything for this toe rag,” I grinned down at Sally.
“These places can be intimidating. I always get lost,” he said.
“These events or these houses, Gavin?” Sally asked him.
“These houses! Too many rooms, it’s unbearable. You agree with me, don’t you, Max?”
“And how many houses like these do you suppose our busy detective has been in, eh?” the first man asked. “Any like these?”
“For events like this? Never-”
“See?”
“But for work, one or two times,” I finished, taking a long sip of champagne, Sally smirking beside me.
“Really?” The younger lady looked unsure. “For cases?”
“That is what his work is, Lois,” Sally pointed out.
“Not murders, surely?”
“Not in the actual house,” I allowed. “Robberies are the most common.”
“What would someone steal?” Lois asked, looking around the extravagant room, as if nothing in here were of any real value.
“All sorts. Jewellery, ornaments. Paintings.”
“Paintings? Do they get sold?”
“Sometimes. Not always.”
“You worked one of those not long ago, didn’t you, Max?” Sally remarked, waving down a waiter to replace our glasses. I nodded in thanks to the young lad who blinked, surprised. Must have been the first one to do that all night. I hope they were getting well paid.
“Back in the spring,” I took the glass she handed me, passing over the empty one.
“In a place like this?”
“Quite like it,” I remarked, looking around.
“Where?”
“North of the city, privately owned house. A painting got stolen.”
“Oh, dear. Was it valuable?”
“To some, less to others.”
“How cryptic,” Lois teased. “Do tell, detective.”
“I’m here to celebrate Sally’s work achievements,” I gave her hand a quick squeeze, “not regale everyone with boring stories of my own.”
“I’m afraid Max doesn’t really like to share his stories,” Sally told them, “though they are very rarely boring, you git.”
“Some of them are.”
“Not since you became an inspector, they’re not. I don’t remember this one, anyway. A painting got stolen, and you didn’t ask me for help?”
“You were in France,” I reminded her. “You weren’t back until a few days in and by then.” I shrugged.
“Oh, yeah,” she mumbled disgruntledly.
“Was the painting recovered?” Gavin asked.
“It was.”
“And the thief?”
“All taken care of,” I answered shortly, wishing I had something stronger in this little glass flute.
“Tell the story, Max,” Sally ordered.
“We’re here for you,” I protested.
“Exactly, you’re here for me. And I would like to hear about this case.” She grinned up at me triumphantly. “Take my mind off having to give a speech later one.” She pinched my hand meaningfully.
Dear Sally was not a fan of public speaking, in any way, shape, or form. She had to give a speech in a school assembly once when we were children, and she made me go up there with her for ‘moral support’.
I flinched, pulling my hand away from her sharp nails. “Really?”
“Really.” She stared up at me stubbornly, and I let out a defeated sigh.
“Can I at least sit down?” I asked, nodding to the sofas.
“Fine.” She dragged me there, the group following excitedly, and we all settled down on the stiff, velvet cushions. I wondered if these sofas were as old as the rest of the house, certainly as old as their owner, in any case.
“Go on then.” Sally slapped my knee. “Get telling, maestro.”
“I should just buy you a stick to poke me with,” I told her, flicking her hand away, “like the kind you get to make monkeys dance.”
“Monkeys are easier to train,” she retorted. “You can get them to things for grapes or juice. You, on the other hand,” she rolled her eyes, “blackmail and physical violence. It’s the only things that have ever worked.”
Light laughter tittered around, and I slumped back against the sofa.
“Very well, your majesty. Like I said, it was a house quite like this, earlier in the Spring. Just as the frost was starting to disappear, the family were having a party.”
One
The party was an annual affair; wedged between birthdays and anniversaries, in the early warm days of spring. It had a permanent place in the calendar of all those who were regularly invited, and amongst the wealthy group, to not be invited was a snub. People drove up from the south to attend, the house filled with people for several days, all of them giddy and drunk. They spent their days wandering the vast land that the estate lay upon, the gardens and fields, perfect, apparently, for shooting and riding. In the evenings, they dined and drank, all excited for the party itself.
When it came, at last, it came with a bang. For the whole morning, it had been a circus of people coming and going, trekking throughout the Elizabethan house. It had to be decorated, first of all, everything dusted and polished to within an inch of its life before being draped with silks and beads.
Serving staff came next, in identical smart jackets, polishing glasses and filling buckets with ice to keep the drinks cold. The doors to the gardens were thrown open, the lawn had been mowed, the hedges neatly trimmed, and the smell of honeysuckles wafted in on the faint breeze. Flowers were cut and brought inside in vases; a trail of petals left behind to be swept up before the Lady of the house saw them.
The kitchen was a hot, steaming room of endless trays of canopies and small, dainty pastries. The cook periodically leant out of the open window, fanning her red face.
The family did little to assist. They drifted around barking orders and watching as the house became a glittering dance floor. Of course, they were only really excited about the affair when they went up to change into their ornate clothes, and the guests began to file in.
By the evening, with the sun down and only candles lighting the house, it was hard to make much sense of the place. People flitted about in sequined dresses, sparkling like disco balls. The alcohol steadily poured, each floor of the grand country estate a cluster of music, laughter, glasses and dancing.
People could make out whoever they were talking to, if they stood close enough to their face and not too much wine had been consumed, but the rest of the place was shadowed. Perfect, for why he was here.
Dressed in an uncomfortable starched suit, he walked around the house for a few hours, using the drifting groups of people to go unseen, room to room. As he walked, the place mapped out in his head. The corridors, the doors and windows, the ones that interlinked, the ones that led to nowhere. The house was strange, decorated over the years so that it had things from every century. A Victorian painting on a wall beside a flatscreen TV, or the sweeping, noble staircase that had crudely drawn children’s crayon drawings framing the wall alongside.
The doors from which the serving staff emerged and vanished were the ones of the most importance to him. People didn’t pay attention to them, save for when they needed a fresh glass or a small morsel of food to soak up the copious amounts of gin they were putting away. People didn’t pay attention to him either; a stranger, whose face couldn’t quite be placed well enough to engage in a conversation with, whose clothes were unr
emarkable, whose expression didn’t invite society.
He slunk from the bustling room he was, some elegant parlour or another where people were sharing stories from a recent holiday they had in some Riviera or another. He drifted towards the only room that was locked in the whole house, saving a few bedrooms. But down here, it was the only one. A lock that was as old as the house, easily picked. Nobody saw as he eased the door open, his gloved hands leaving no trace, and slipped through the doorway, into the old study. Closing the door behind him, he looked at the room he was in, stumped. It was bigger than his flat. Stupidly big, even the fireplace was as tall as he was.
The walls, half panelled in a deep cherry wood, were painted red; the same wood flowed seamlessly down onto the floor, a large Turkish rug dominating the floorboards from the fireplace to the windows. Large windows, great arching things that squealed when they were opened, were framed with heavy, scarlet curtains. Windows that looked out onto the garden, where a few of the guests escaped for the cooling night breeze, laughing and half-tumbling over the flowerbeds. Smoke from their cigarettes spiralled around them, and they were no more aware of the busy rooms behind them than they were the one he was in. Nevertheless, he didn’t turn on any lights as he walked further inside.
A large oak desk sat before the glass panes, the kind that could almost belong in a Bond film. A bronze globe sat atop it, crystal bottles of port and whiskey, untouched, on a silver tray with two glasses. Anything in here would be valuable, and anything in here would make him rich. Even the fancy pen looked like it could pay a month’s worth of his rent. But he looked away from the trinkets and treasures, scanning the walls, his attention honed on the large oil paintings that hung from the picture rails. Portraits and landscapes, one of a rather upset looking horse. Images of the family throughout the centuries, in large, uncomfortable dresses and cravats, all the way down to the mustard-coloured sixties and the current inhabitants in their modern, avant-garde apparel. A proper painting of them, not just a photograph, the whole family, smiling dimly out from their golden frame. He stared at their faces for a moment, scowling up at them, and tore himself away, trying to focus.
He spotted the one he wanted, not as large as the others, thankfully. A small landscape of the lake that lay just within the estate’s grounds, simple, unnoticeable. He dragged a chair over from the desk and stood on it, reaching up, and took the painting carefully off the wall. It was heavier than he thought it would be. He climbed back down and flipped it over, trying to see how to get into the frame.
As he fumbled with it, the clock chimed throughout the house, eleven tolls. The party would be over soon, the guests dwindling away as the lights came back on, and the clean up began. Not long enough, he realised, shoving the painting under his arm. He’d just have to take it home, wouldn’t he?
But strolling through the house, a painting in hand, wouldn’t go unnoticed. He shrugged his jacket off, wrapping it around the painting, and dragged the chair back over to the desk, opening one of the decanters. Sticking his fingers in, he splashed some of the red liquid onto his shirt and jacket, letting it stain, letting the smell of it cover him. Hopefully, they would see the shirt, see the splatters, and come to the conclusion that he was just another clumsy drunk who spilt his drink all down himself. No need to look any closer at why he bundled his jacket close to his chest or why his jacket was vaguely rectangular.
Replacing the glass stopper, he sidled back over to the door, opening it a fraction to peer out, and cursed internally. A small cluster of people was in the corridor, leaning against the walls, laughing together.
He ducked back, looking around the room. Only the one door in this place, and the windows were a no go, not with the growing crowd that filtered out into the fresh air.
Sweat pooled under his collar, running cold down his back, the heady smell of the port filling his nose. He adjusted his grip on the painting, hands clammy, and snuck another look out of the crack in the door.
They were still there, lingering, quite at ease, looking like they had no mind to move anytime soon. Some of them left their glasses on the floor, looking like they might fall down there themselves. He debated, briefly, just walking out, stumbling a bit like a drunk and hoping they wouldn’t think too much of it. But they’d remember that; remember him, and they weren’t supposed to.
As he watched, panicking slightly and running an internal argument through his head, a waitress rounded the corner in a little black apron, a tray of empty glasses balanced in her hand. She looked at the people, down towards the door, over her own shoulder, and then back to the crowd.
“Lord Hocking asked that nobody come down this hall,” she told them. “Says it’s off-limits for this evening.”
Well, he definitely couldn’t emerge now that they knew that.
One of the men pushed himself off the wall, towering over her. He had the clear-faced, smartly dressed appearance of a man who came from a long, wealthy line. They must get quite hard to tell apart, really, all smug-faced and probably somehow related.
“You’re down here,” he pointed out to her, his clipped voice smooth as he regarded her like a cat watches a bird.
“Heard the noise as I was picking these up.” She hefted her tray. “Came to see what it was. I can fetch him,” she offered. “Lord Hocking, y’know, if you’d rather hear it from him?”
“No need,” one of the women drawled. “Come along, Humphrey, leave the poor girl be.” She drained her glass, dropping it onto the girl’s tray and sauntered away, the rest of the pack trailing after her, chuckling and grinning. Only the young man, Humphrey, stayed, still staring down at the waitress.
“You’re very pretty,” he told her quietly, in a slightly slurring voice.
“Thank you, sir,” she answered shortly, staking a step to the side to let him pass. He didn’t move, only stepped closer, tilting his head to one side.
“You’re a waitress?”
“Only on the weekends.”
“And not on the weekends?”
“A student, sir, university.”
“Oh!” He stuck his hands in his pockets and took another step towards her. She took a careful step back, readjusting her hold on the tray of glass, and from where he watched in the office, he debated going out there now and helping her. But she looked up at the man with enough venom in her eyes that he doubted she'd thank his input. Plus, he wasn’t about to lose out on all this now. He pulled at his collar, his skin hot as he watched, and waited.
“What do you study?” Humphrey was asking her.
“History.”
“I studied history,” he told her, “at Cambridge.”
“Good for you. Lord Hocking does wish to keep this hallway out of bounds,” she reminded him. “If you’d like to make your way back now. Your friends will have gone off without you.”
“I don’t mind that.” Another step forward, another step back. “I can make new friends.”
“I’m working,” she said bitterly.
“When do you finish?”
“When you’ve all gone home.”
He smiled unpleasantly. “What if I waited?”
“Humphrey!” the shrill voice of the woman he had been with came hollering over the music. He looked up, his expression going from surprised to bored in a matter of seconds.
“Coming!” he called back.
He returned his gaze to the waitress and chortled, shaking his head and walked past her, eyes sticking to her like a hawk.
She didn’t move until he had passed, disappearing around the corner, then she picked up the few glasses they had left behind, looked once more at the door with a frown, before turning on her heel and heading back into the main bustle of the party.
She had handled that well. Although a pretty girl in a place like this, serving drinks to men like that, he had little doubt in his mind that this was her first time having to deal with these sorts of encounters.
And now, at last, the hallway was empty again. The noise of the c
rowd distantly faded into the general ruckus beyond. He waited for a breath, in case any of them came back, and when they didn’t, he collapsed against the wall, letting his heartbeat settle. Relieved, he gathered his nerves again and quickly left the room, locking the door behind himself. Yanking his collar loose and mussing up his hair, he put on a stumbling walk, making his way from the study, back to the crowded rooms. Already the party was dying down. People stood in the entrance, pulling on shining fur coats to brace the growing chill outside.
The Lord of the house stood at the front door, red-faced and boisterous as every good man of aristocracy seemed to be, even in this day and age. The front door might not be the best way out, he considered, watching as Lord Hocking shook hands and kissed everyone that bid him goodnight, tumbling outside, still laughing.
“Bugger,” he muttered under his breath.
There were always other ways out in houses like these. Old, ancient houses where servants were never seen or heard, where they could get in and out, move around from room to room without the genteel having to look at them. You wouldn’t get a scullery maid waltzing through the front door, would you?
He headed for the small, barren hallway that led to the kitchen, stumbling passed the waiters that lolled about, tired eyed and rubbing their feet. A small set of stairs ran down to the cellar and, checking to see that no one paid him any mind, he went down them, into the cold stone labyrinth that ran beneath the house. Storage rooms now, but they probably would have been something more interesting once. Butler’s rooms or something. Along the damp hallway, a small door with a glass window led outside into the side of the house. It was the servants’ entrance. The Lord of the house would never pay it any mind. Most of the supplies for tonight probably came through here, if the muddy footprints were anything to go by.
Securing his grip on the painting, he pushed the door open, stepping out into the night. The music spilt out from the open windows, rays of light falling over the little courtyard. Sticking to the wall, to the shadows, he inched his way around the house to where the catering vans lay idle, a few of the waiters lounging about with cigarettes in hand. A few of them scrolled on their phones, bored, a few playing a game of cards.
DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Books 1-3 Page 27
