Christmas Is Murder, page 10
part #1 of Rex Graves Series
“Me? I’m probably not even as interesting as Mr. Algebraic Equation.”
“Falsely modest,” she said snapping her compact shut and jabbing him playfully in the shoulder.
“Tell me other things about myself.” Rex was enjoying himself. The first Guinness had taken the edge off his thirst, the second was beginning to make him feel mellow.
“Well,” Helen said matter-of-factly as she rolled back the sleeves of her white sweater. “The way you place objects so they don’t touch one another … See—you moved the ashtray away, but not as far as the bar mat. You set the dish of peanuts out of the way of your notebook and left a space between it and your glass. You’re a separatist, aloof, preferring your own company to that of others, and you shy away from physical contact.”
“Not always.”
“I’m speaking generalities. The interesting question for me is why?”
“Well, you’ve got me interested too. Why, doctor?”
“We’ll get to that. I need to finish my character assessment first. You are intelligent, analytical—that’s what makes you a good barrister—”
“How do you know I’m a good barrister?”
Unabashed, Helen told him that she had Googled him on Miriam’s BlackBerry when he first arrived and found that he’d successfully defended the Crown in the vast majority of his cases.
“What else? I’m warming to me.”
“You’re very ethical. And respectful of women in an old-fashioned sort of way. Are you very close to your mother?”
“Aye. I lost my father when I was seven. My mother raised me with a blend of kindness and strict moral values. Whenever I misbehaved she beat me over the head with her bible.”
“Women intimidate you.”
“Argh, I wouldna say that.”
“Well, maybe I’m reaching. But you’re not a flirtatious man. I don’t know what you think of me. I’d like to think you were attracted, but holding back for some reason.” She rattled the ice in her vodka-tonic.
“There are plenty of reasons, Helen, not least of which being that I have two murders on my hands. But I find you bonnie enough, I’ll give you that.”
Helen blushed and stared into her glass. “But it’s not going anywhere, is it?”
Rex felt some of his warm humor slip away. “I too have someone at home. She’s a good woman—”
“You don’t have to explain,” Helen interrupted. “I knew you were ethical.”
Rex bowed his head. Although the widow he’d been seeing in Edinburgh had gone overseas for an indefinite period of time, they had made a commitment to stay in touch and see where things led. “If I was free and there was not all this mayhem going on at the hotel, ah, lassie, I’d be on you faster than a speeding bullet.”
She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head gently. “Sorry to put a damper on our jolly outing.”
He took her hand briefly. “You didna do that. Perhaps you can lend me your professional expertise. What’s your take on the others?”
“Ah, let me see now.” Helen stared ahead at the liquor bottles on the shelves behind the bar. “Anthony, a man of fine taste and acerbic wit … He could be our dastardly killer. Patrick’s an odd duck—I think he’s more likely. Charley comes off as all matey-matey, but there’s something going on, and Yvette is obviously manipulated. I can see that ending in an abusive relationship. I hope I’m wrong.”
“Wanda?”
“Wanda as in a serial killer? Hardly—although I’m no expert in psychopath profiling. She’s emotionally fragile, but not insane.”
“You think the murderer is insane?”
Helen assumed what Rex guessed was her professional look with students—an expression that suggested she was prepared to consider anything without prejudice. “I think the person is under severe stress,” she said carefully.
“What makes you say that?”
“The behaviour seems erratic—first planned, then erratic, I mean.”
“How do you know the first murder was planned?”
Helen offered him her crisps. “Sorry, I’ve been hogging these.” He declined with a wave of his hand. “I heard you discussing the cyanide outside Charley’s door,” she told him. “I didn’t catch much of what you were saying. I came upstairs for a ball of wool and slipped away before you saw me.”
“You weren’t alarmed?”
“At the time I thought it was a theoretical conversation, maybe to do with one of your cases.”
“And the erratic behaviour … What do you mean by that?”
“Well, the candlestick was carefully wiped clean of prints. But the way the BlackBerry and manuscript were got rid of point to hasty and possibly irrational acts.”
“Aye, I considered that myself. What about the staff? Any suspicions?”
“An old lady, a cranky old man?” She laughed. “I’d be surprised, but when it really comes down to it, I can’t imagine it being any of the people at the hotel.”
“It has to be one of them. What about Rosie?”
“I’d say not, but then one of my students at school got in trouble with the law. Pauline’s a good girl really, but she has problems at home.”
“Mrs. Bellows?”
“Least of all. Salt of the earth type.”
Rex sighed ponderously.
“I wasn’t much help was I?” Helen said. “What about me? How do you know it wasn’t me who killed Henry and Miriam?”
He looked into her unwavering blue eyes. “I had to eliminate a few people, but if you turn out to be the murderer, Helen, my last shred of hope for humanity will go up in smoke.”
With a sharp intake of breath, Helen looked away, and then back at him. “So, why did you never get married?” she asked with a forced lightness.
“I was. I’m a widower.”
“Oh, I missed that one, didn’t I? And there I was going on about your feelings toward women. You must think me an utter fool.” Her head tilted forward, hair falling across her face concealing her expression. “How did she die—if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Breast cancer.” The lump grew in his throat. It had been four years since he lost Fiona, but the pain and injustice of her death lurked beneath the surface, a rip tide ready to drag him under when he least expected it.
“Rex, how awful … Children?”
“A boy. Eighteen. I even have the requisite photo.” He reached into his pocket for his wallet.
“Ready to settle up?” the barman asked.
“No hurry.” Rex extracted a head and shoulders snapshot of his son taken during his last term at school. “This is Campbell.”
“Handsome,” Helen said, scrutinizing the picture in her hand, “though I don’t see much of a resemblance.”
“No, he got his blonde hair from his mother. And he’s lanky, not stocky like meself.”
“He looks very formal in his tie.”
“Aye, he looks like it’s choking him.”
Helen laughed, and Rex was glad to see the tense mood between them broken. “So, is he a chip off the old block? Planning to go into law?”
“Noo. He’s not really one for the books. He’s studying marine science in Florida. He decided he wanted to save the dolphins.”
“That’s very commendable.” Helen returned the photo.
“It would be, but I think it was more a question of sun, surfing, and scoping out girls in thongs. Anyway, he’s staying with his roommate in Miami for Christmas.” Rex drained the last of the Guinness and wiped off his mustache with a paper napkin.
The barman approached, drying a glass. “Are you staying at the hotel?”
“Aye. D’ye know anybody up there?”
“I’m acquainted with the cook, Sandy Bellows. She joins her husband of an evening for darts. A dab hand, she is.” The barman, a middle-aged man with elaborate tattoos on his forearms, paused to think. “I don’t know the new girl, but her sister used to come in all the time with her young man. He worked for the phone company—heard he moved to Essex. Marie went home to London in July last year to share her birthday with her sister, and we never saw her again. Killed on the seventh, the day of her birthday. Nobody’ll forget that day in a hurry.”
“Tragic,” Helen said with feeling.
The barman eyed her with a glimmer of primal interest. Rex was stunned by the emotions that look roused in him—pride mixed with a protective instinct that made him want to grab the man by the throat. Rex, me old man, he thought with wry amusement.
“I wouldn’t live in London for nothing,” the bartender was telling Helen. “Nor in any big city. I like it right here where it’s peaceful and nothing happens out of the ordinary, except for a freak snow storm.” He winked at her. “One for the road?” he asked them.
“Not for me,” Rex said. “Helen?” She shook her head. “But I’ll buy a bottle of Croft Sherry off you if I may. For Clifford,” he explained to Helen as the barman went to fetch one down from the shelf. “And a bottle of your best vintage port,” he called after him.
A local who had appropriated the neighboring bar stool leaned in toward Rex. “There were two men from the hotel in here before the snow started,” he imparted in a broad Sussex dialect. “Saying as how they’d like to give the old manor a face-lift, if they could get it for a knockdown price. I think one of them was in the antiques business.”
“Anthony Smart,” Helen murmured.
“Got quite boisterous after a few shots.”
“I remember him and his young friend,” the barman said, returning with the bottles. “Thought I’d have to throw ’em out.” He rung up the total and Rex delved into his wallet.
“I don’t suppose your phone is working?” Rex asked.
The man lifted the receiver of the phone behind the bar, put it to his ear, and shook his head.
Rex cursed to himself. He’d wanted to call home and ask the housekeeper if a letter had come for him postmarked Iraq. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his coat pocket. “Could ye put this sign up somewhere? A puppy was abandoned by the station.”
The barman nodded and took the sheet, wishing them a good Christmas.
As Rex and Helen headed toward the entrance, she whispered, “Did you feel me kick you when he was going on about nothing out of the ordinary ever happening in Swanmere? I couldn’t keep my face straight.”
A blast of frigid air hit Rex as he held the door open for her. “Well, time to head back,” he said, collecting the skis and poles he had propped against the wall.
Helen pouted in jest. “Must we?”
“Aye, lass. I’ve undertaken an investigation in the absence of the police. No one can leave until they’ve been cleared.”
“I hope nothing happened while we were gone,” Helen said, sounding slightly out of breath as she bent over to tighten her bootlaces.
The movement stretched the fabric of her ski pants over her backside, and Rex thought it a pity he had nothing better to entertain himself with later than a dreary game of charades.
And the more daunting challenge of catching the killer.
Helen pointed across the street from the pub. “Oh, look, there’s a shop open on the corner.”
Rex resisted the impulse to look at his watch, though he was now anxious to get back to the hotel. “Do you need anything?”
“Not really, but I never pass up the opportunity to look. There might be something interesting in the way of souvenirs.”
Rex carried the skis through the slush to the store. The front door opened with a tinkle.
A young Pakistani stood reading a paper behind the counter. “Most Merry Christmas,” he greeted them. “And how may I be helping you today?”
Rex felt he should buy something to reward the man for being open on Christmas Eve and asked for his brand of tobacco while Helen surveyed the shelves.
“Oh, look at these,” she squealed, holding out a pair of earrings in the shape of swans.
“These are very popular,” the man enthused. “They are hand-crafted by my wife using sterling silver and turquoise stones for the eyes.”
Rex indulgently held out his hand for the earrings and asked the shopkeeper to add them to his purchase.
“Oh, Rex, thank you. I love them!”
The man smiled happily as he packed the earrings in a small box wadded with cotton wool. They wished him a Happy Christmas and left the shop.
“Isn’t it lucky we went in there?” Helen chirped as they retrieved their skis. “Now that nice man can tell his wife how much we liked her jewellery and that it was worth staying open today.”
“Aye,” Rex said, suppressing a grin. It never failed to amaze him how women always managed to find a way to justify their purchases.
___
It was almost dark by the time they finally made it back up the hill through the forest. His gloves had become soaked through when Helen, toppling into a shallow ravine, had dislodged her ski and he’d had to wipe off the ice to get her boot back in the binding. The lights blazing in the windows of the hotel were a welcome sight, and Rex hoped all was as peaceful inside as it looked from the south garden.
He stood his skis against the wall by the scullery door and helped Helen off with hers. Once inside, he gratefully pulled the boots off his feet.
Mrs. Smithings waylaid them in the kitchen. “Good afternoon, Ms. d’Arcy. What a nice colour you have in your cheeks.”
“Oh, we had a wonderful time.”
“I dare say you did,” the hotel owner replied, watching with a curious expression as Helen walked on through the kitchen. She turned her attention to Rex. “Reginald, you never cease to amaze me—you found yet another way across the snow. Even as a child, you were always one step ahead of everyone else. How was the skiing?”
Rex coughed in apology. “I didn’t want to disturb you earlier. I’ll put everything back where I found it.”
“You are quite welcome to use the skis. I would have offered them to you had I remembered we still had them.”
“Thank you. Oh, by the way, are you missing a key?”
“Yes. Did you find it? Rosie misplaced hers when she was cleaning upstairs yesterday. I had to give her mine.”
“I think I know where the other one is. How many master keys do you have?”
“Three. Mine, the one I give Louise—which is now in your possession—and Rosie’s. I get them back at the end of the day and lock them up in the safe. I keep mine on my person.”
Rex thanked her again for the use of the skis and proceeded on his way. Clifford sat at the pine table slicing the bottoms off Brussels sprouts. Rex decided to leave the sherry in his pocket until the old man was alone.
“What delicious recipe have you prepared for our tea?” he asked Mrs. Bellows, who was sharpening her carving knife with gusto at the counter, no doubt in readiness for the turkey the following day.
“Marzipan-covered fruit cake topped with royal icing.”
Rex was not sure he liked the sound of that. Marzipan was almond paste and the thought of eating it made him anxious.
“I’ve been feeding the cake brandy since November,” the cook added. “It’s full of currants, raisins, and cherries, a bit like your Scottish Whisky Dundee.”
“Aye, my mother makes that, but without the whisky.”
Mrs. Bellows shook her head in disapproval. “Fancy that. I put in at least two tablespoons of brandy. And I add chopped walnuts, citron peel, and angelica to make it extra special.”
“You have forty-five minutes until tea,” Mrs. Smithings reminded him.
As Rex passed the drawing room, he caught sight of Helen chatting to Patrick and Anthony. Approaching the front door, he noticed shadows moving behind the frosted swirls of glass. Through a clear pane in the sidelight, he saw a bareheaded Charley and a hooded Yvette standing beside a snowman. While her husband studded the face with stones, forming a mirthless grin and sightless eyes, Yvette stuck twigs in its sides for arms. She was wearing smooth-soled fashion boots, and Rex hoped she wouldn’t slip on the patches of ice glistening beneath the porch light.
He considered warning her to be careful and donating his scarf to the snowman, but the prospect of a nice warm bath lured him on up the stairs. Rosie was running a carpet sweeper along the landing. “Do you never get a rest, lass?” he asked.
She made a resigned face. “Mrs. Smithings promised me a bonus for all the extra work. I’m saving up for a car.”
“What sort of car are you thinking of buying?”
“A Mini Cooper.”
“Good choice. I have one of those.”
“You do?” Rosie looked surprised. “I imagine you in a bigger car.”
“I’m all about fuel efficiency. If I have to travel long distances, I go by train. That way I can get some work done.”
“I’ll never take the train again,” Rosie declared.
“Oh, Rosie, I’m sorry. I heard about your sister and I forgot. How clumsy of me.”
“It’s all right,” the girl said with an effort, and then in a more cheerful voice: “You’re all bundled up. Did you go out somewhere?”
“Aye, down to the pub.”
“That must have been fun.”
“It was. I heard your sister used to go to the Swanmere Arms.”
“They do like to gossip in the village, don’t they?”
“So, what brought you here?”
“I thought there might be an opportunity for advancement. Marie talked about how lonely Mrs. Smithings was and how there were no young relatives to leave all this to.” Rosie looked about her in some awe. “She said if she stayed long enough, Mrs. Smithings might leave her something. Mrs. Smithings still calls me Marie sometimes.”
