by Nancy Warren
I had an idea. “I’m going to say a name. You don’t have to tell me anything at all. If that person came to your meetings in London, put the hardhat back on your head. If they didn’t, just keep that hardhat in your hand.”
He looked at me as though that was the stupidest request anyone had ever made of him. Still, he didn’t say a word.
I looked at him. Very slowly and clearly I enunciated a name. “Boris Wynter.”
His eyes remained steady on mine. Neither of us moved. There was a clatter from inside the church. One of the metal pieces of scaffolding must’ve fallen to the old stone floor. Slowly he took the hardhat and put it back on his head. “If you’ll excuse me, I should be getting back.”
And then he turned and walked back toward the construction zone.
I was so pleased with myself that I texted Rafe and asked him to meet me at his place.
“As it happens, I’m on my way there now. I’ll tell William to prepare you some dinner.”
Even though I’d eaten all those scones and cream and tea, I knew I’d have a second meal if William cooked it. He was always so pleased to have a human to cook for, and his food was so good, I couldn’t resist it. Tomorrow, I was really going to have to start my exercise program. I had no idea what that exercise program was going to be, but I was definitely going to start. Tomorrow.
Rafe must’ve immediately called William, for when I pulled up in front of the manor house twenty minutes later, William opened the grand front doors.
Henri, the peacock, came waddling up. I swear that bird knew the sound of my car and that he could always count on me for a treat. I’d picked up some special pellets at a wild bird store for just such an occasion. I fed Henri his pellet and told him how handsome he was. He looked up at me from his glassy black eyes as though to say, Of course, I’m a peacock. Then he waddled off again.
I headed toward William just as Rafe was coming down the driveway. William’s eyebrows rose. “You seem to have tamed all the men in this house, Lucy. The minute you arrive, we all come running.”
I laughed, but I felt a slight blush rise.
William must have felt bad. “I’m delighted to see you. I understand I’ll have the pleasure of feeding you dinner tonight.”
I shook my head. “Honestly, I don’t need dinner, but you know what Rafe’s like.”
William looked crestfallen. “You won’t break my heart by refusing dinner, will you? Believe me, cooking for Rafe does not tax my abilities.”
“I’m happy to step into the breach. But you can just feed me some of the leftovers from the wedding reception.” Even though a lot of people had come to Rafe’s after the ceremony, they hadn’t stayed as long or eaten as much as they would have if they weren’t there in the wake of a tragedy. There must’ve been a lot of food left over.
He shuddered. “There isn’t a scrap left. What didn’t get eaten at the reception, we donated to a homeless shelter.”
That sounded like a good solution. And I didn’t relish eating food that would remind me of that unfortunate day. “I’m glad it didn’t get wasted.”
By this time, Rafe was getting out of his car. He looked immaculate as always, in a navy blue blazer over a gray sweater and jeans.
Since I’d been so hard on Violet about rushing into romance, I wanted to be absolutely clear that I wasn’t doing the same thing. When he climbed the shallow steps to join us, I said, “I’m so glad I caught you. I think I’ve had a break in the Rupert Grendell-Smythe murder case.”
If Rafe was surprised, he didn’t show it. One of his many talents was the ability to keep his emotions well hidden. “Come in and tell me all about it.”
“Would you like some tea, Lucy?” William asked.
“I spent an hour at Elderflower Tea Shop. Maybe I could have some water?”
We both walked straight to his library, a much cozier space than the lounge. I immediately dropped into a comfortable upholstered chair in the corner while Rafe settled himself in a leather armchair across from me. It was so natural, I realized I already had my accustomed spot, just as he had his.
He didn’t waste time asking me what I’d found out, just looked at me and waited for me to speak.
So I did. “I keep thinking that if the murderer wasn’t Sophie, so in love with Charlie that she tried to get rid of her rival, then maybe there was a connection between Philip Wallington and the murder. As we’ve said before, why choose Alice and Charlie’s wedding to cause this disaster? It had to be connected to all those people who came from London.”
“Including Rupert Grendell-Smythe?”
I waved that away. “Today the Miss Watts were telling me about this nice couple who are their customers. The son is a drug addict. They said, and I quote, ‘It happens in the nicest families.’”
He nodded, looking grave. “That’s true. It does.”
“And I began to think. You remember when you said that the vicar didn’t tell the police everything? He didn’t tell them he’d been beaten up by people who would very much like him to stop helping addicts?”
William came in with a silver tray. On it were bottles of still and sparkling water, a silver bucket of ice, and slices of both fresh lime and lemon. If I was ever rich enough to have a butler, I was definitely going to do my best to steal William.
There were two glasses on the tray. I asked for sparkling water with lime, because I rarely had fancy water. William put three ice cubes in my glass, since he knew I liked my drinks cold. He didn’t even ask Rafe, just poured him a glass of still water and added a slice of lemon. Then he said dinner would be ready in twenty minutes and quietly left the room.
I sipped my water, letting it ease my dry throat. Between the dust from the church construction in the parking lot, and me talking, I was in need of water. “What if there was someone at the wedding that day he knew from London? Someone he knew from his outreach work.”
His eyes were steady on my face, but I knew I had Rafe’s full attention now. “And?”
“And, I don’t know London geography, but Philip’s parish before this one was in Harlesden. It’s near Wembley.”
“Of course. That’s where Charlie and his friends come from.”
“And,” I said with some satisfaction, “I asked Philip if he’d recognized anyone from his work with addicts.”
He nodded. “And no doubt the vicar told you that he would be breaking every confidence if he shared that information with you.”
“That’s exactly what he said. So I said I’d give him a name and he would indicate without using any words whether he knew that person from his outreach days or not.”
His brows rose slightly at that.
“So I gave him a name. Boris Wynter.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And?”
This was the best part. So I left a pause for dramatic effect. “And he indicated that he did recognize Boris Wynter.”
“Well done, Lucy.”
I thought I’d done well too. The problem I was having was putting it all together. “So what do you think?”
“I think that Boris Wynter either has a drug problem, or he was there for some other reason.”
“What other reason?”
“I have no idea.”
“Can you find out?”
He looked slightly amused. “I thought we’d get to the part where you needed me to help you.”
If I was a younger and ruder person, I would’ve stuck my tongue out at him. “Well, you do have a pretty amazing network.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.”
I eyed him dubiously. “You’re not acting like this is the breakthrough I think it is.”
“You haven’t convinced me. Where’s the connection between Boris Wynter having a drug or alcohol addiction and Rupert Grendell-Smythe being killed by a falling beam?”
I stood up out of my chair. It was a habit Rafe and I shared, to pace when we were thinking deeply. I never understood quite why it helped, but sometimes it seeme
d as though walking up and down kind of massaged my brain. As crazy as that sounded, it helped. Anyway, as I paced back and forth, priceless books and manuscripts surrounding me, I thought about stories. The stories we tell, the stories we make up, the stories that become our lives.
Charlie and Alice’s wedding first started to go wrong when Sophie Wynter had told a story at the hen party. The story of how she was meant to be with Charlie and not Alice.
When someone told a lie, we might accuse them of making up a story. Even if there was some element of truth in what Sophie had said, in that she really had seen a fortune-teller who really had told her she’d get her heart’s desire and end up with Charlie, she had still bought into that story when anyone else might’ve thought it was a light bit of fun.
Now it seemed that Boris had dark secrets. What was his story? What I said aloud was, “Sophie and Boris Wynter both had something to gain. Sophie wanted Charlie, and maybe Boris wanted to rid himself of the man who’d seen him at a drug addiction meeting.”
Rafe had been watching me, and now he too rose and began to pace. It was like two-way traffic going back and forth in the library. Rafe said, “But that beam didn’t destroy the vicar. It didn’t fall anywhere near him.”
“No. But he didn’t have to actually kill Philip Wallington. The church is now closed. Maybe the Anglican Church will decide this guy brings too much trouble on them, and they’ll send him to South America. Or he’ll decide he’s had enough of ministering and make his own decision to leave the church.” I paced some more. “Either way, if Sophie wanted Alice out of the way, dropping a beam on her head was a pretty good way to do it. Very permanent, with no need to wait for Charlie’s eventual divorce. She could make him instantly a widower five seconds after he got married.”
Rafe looked at me, and his mouth quirked up. “You see her rather like Macbeth, then, being given a dubious prophecy and then deciding to rush fate by murdering everyone who stood in her way.”
I wasn’t sure if he was teasing me and thought it was quite possible that he was. “Macbeth isn’t my favorite play. The witches are far too villainous. But yes, I suppose in a way, it is similar. It doesn’t matter if the fortune-teller was just making things up; the point is that Sophie believed it and then took her own steps to make that fortune her reality.”
“Even if it meant murder?”
“I know it seems like a stretch. But you weren’t there at the hen party. That woman is obsessed with Charlie.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I was present at the wedding, however. From where I was sitting, I could barely hear the service for all the wailing and sobbing coming from her.”
“And then she left. Before the service was even over, she left the church.”
“I still don’t believe that she managed to cut that beam and then was able to make it drop.”
“No. But maybe she pulled a Lady Macbeth.”
He stopped pacing to look at me. Then he nodded, slowly. “I see what you mean. Lady Macbeth doesn’t do any murdering herself. She sends others to do it for her.”
“Right. With her encouragement. So maybe she got her big, strong, strapping brother to do the killing for her.”
Rafe nodded. “And, at the same time, he was able to get rid of his troublesome priest.”
He said the last two words as though he were quoting them. I knew he’d been alive during Shakespeare’s time. No doubt they used to sit around discussing his plays. I said, “That’s not from Macbeth.” At least I didn’t think it was.
His eyes glimmered with suppressed humor. “No. It’s not Shakespeare at all. It’s attributed to Henry II, who was complaining about Thomas à Beckett the Archbishop of Canterbury. Saying those words caused four knights to go out and murder Beckett.”
“Stories,” I said. “So many stories.”
“And so often history does repeat itself.” He sighed. “Believe me. I’ve seen it.”
I wasn’t completely happy with this theory, and I could tell that Rafe hadn’t entirely bought into it either. “But it does link London and Moreton-under-Wychwood and Boris and Sophie.”
“And it links them to Alice and Philip Wallington. Not to Rupert Grendell-Smythe.”
“What do we know about Rupert?”
“Not a great deal. He was a teacher, well loved by all. His students spoke highly of him. He enjoyed a long, happy marriage, and he was close to his son. He didn’t seem to have any enemies.”
That was the most frustrating thing about my theory. It didn’t solve the murder of the man who had actually been murdered. It solved the murder of someone who was still alive.
Chapter 17
I glanced at the old clock ticking away in the corner of the library, so quietly I barely noticed it. I groaned. “In three hours I have to meet Margaret Twigg for flying lessons.”
He chuckled and then tried to disguise it as a cough. Not very successfully. “Flying lessons? Really? She’s making you do more of them, is she?”
I turned to him. “Did you actually know that witches fly on brooms?”
“Of course I did. Doesn’t everyone?”
I shook my head at him.
“Well, if you’ve got a big night ahead of you, we’d better get you fed.” He held out his arm to show me out of the room. “Come on. Let’s see what William’s got for you.”
How William did it, I would never know. He had barely any notice at all that he was having a guest for dinner, and yet I was treated to salmon done in a wonderful lemon and white wine sauce, with tiny potatoes, spinach and yellow squash.
I refused the offer of wine since I didn’t want to drink and drive, not even on my broom.
We didn’t talk about anything very much. Mostly Rafe talked and let me eat. We steered clear of any talk of the murder until William brought out a plate of fruit and cheese and biscuits for my dessert. I found my mind kept coming back to the murder, like a tongue probing a sore tooth.
“Did you find out anything more about Charlie’s parents?” They’d been the other people who’d been closest to that falling beam.
Rafe shook his head. “I told you before that everyone has dark secrets. It seems I was wrong. Charlie’s parents have none. They’re so thoroughly decent, I suspect they’ll both be sainted. The only thing that flagged me was the generosity. They lent money to people who would clearly never pay it back. Oh, and one interesting thing: They helped fund Alistair Grendell-Smythe’s university education. They seem to have kept it very quiet though. I don’t believe even Charlie knows.”
It made sense to me that someone as lovely as Charlie had parents that nice. “Well, I hardly think they’d be targets for violence then. But why couldn’t Alistair’s parents pay for his schooling?”
“Not as well off, I should think. His father was a schoolteacher, and his mother had been a bookkeeper, but she gave up work when Alistair came along. She went back to work part-time when he was older, but she gave it up when she got sick.”
“It’s all so sad.” At least I wanted to help Alistair find some kind of closure so he could move on.
I left before nine, as I still needed to get home and get my cat and my broom and I wanted to change into something thicker and warmer.
I found myself back at Margaret Twigg’s cottage a little before ten. This time I didn’t bother arguing with Nyx, I just opened the door and she jumped out while I retrieved the broom.
Once more, Violet and my Aunt Lavinia had come to watch my lesson. Violet seemed to have gotten over herself and was perfectly pleasant to me.
Margaret had me flying all over the Cotswolds, but I didn’t mind. I found I loved flying, and it left my mind free to wander. I had a theory of the murder, but how could I test it? Sophie was in love with Charlie and wanted Alice dead. Boris was a drug addict and, having been recognized by the vicar who’d run an addicts anonymous program, decided to dispose of him. It was a great theory. All it lacked was a shred of proof.
When Saturday arrived, we closed the shop as
usual at five, and I went straight upstairs. I’d turned down an invitation to go out on the town with Beatrice in favor of staying in and doing absolutely nothing.
It seemed rare these days for me to enjoy a quiet evening at home. Except that it wasn’t a quiet evening at home, because the minute I wasn’t actively doing something else, my mind shifted to the puzzle of Rupert’s death. I was missing something, something obvious. I was certain of that. Every time I followed a promising path, it turned into a dead end. But in this maze of possibilities, one of them had to be right. One of these paths had to lead to the center of the puzzle. The truth.
I had an awful feeling that if we didn’t figure it out soon, someone else was going to be hurt. Possibly die.
I fed Nyx her dinner. She only ate top-of-the-line tuna, and it looked so good—and besides, I had so little food in the house—that I opened a can for myself and made a tuna fish sandwich for my dinner.
When I opened the second can, Nyx stared at me as though she couldn’t believe her eyes. “What?” I asked her. “I have not turned into a woman who eats cat food. It’s you who are eating people food. So stop staring at me like that.”
She looked at me with pity, which she often did, and then went back to her meal.
I took my own sandwich into the lounge and sat brooding. I found sometimes if I just stopped thinking about a problem, the answer would arrive. It was difficult to stop thinking about this because I felt so invested. I was worried about Alice and Charlie. I was worried about Alistair, and now that Alistair was connected with Violet, I had to worry about her, too. I worried about this invasion of dark witches that Margaret Twigg had warned me about. I worried that, if they invaded, I wouldn’t be ready in time.
In short, I was a mess. I put on the kettle and brewed a calming tea. At least I was doing quite well in the magical tea department.
I finished my sandwich, vowing to do a proper grocery shop in the next day or two, and then sat with my tea.
