Murder at Mistletoe Manor, page 2
Donal is back at the desk, and sitting in front of him, licking a paw, is a large black-and-white cat with a bell around its neck.
‘Evening. This is Jingle,’ says Donal. ‘He’s very friendly, I hope you’re not allergic.’
‘Nope. I love cats.’ Nick wanders over to stroke his silky head. Jingle pushes against his hand, and stretches a paw to pat his sleeve for more.
‘Does he live here?’
‘Yep,’ says Donal. ‘He belongs to the hotel and everyone in it. The bell is because he’s a terrible one for catching birds and bringing them in as gifts. At least this way, they get fair warning. Everyone’s down already,’ he adds. ‘I’ll be bringing whisky cocktails shortly. Unless you don’t drink, of course?’
‘No, I drink,’ Nick tells him. ‘Not many teetotal journalists out there.’
‘Oh, you’re a journalist! Better be careful what I say.’
Donal must be the three-thousandth person to have said that in the course of Nick’s career.
‘My phone’s not working,’ Nick tells him. ‘Is there a landline?’
Donal pulls a face. ‘The Wi-Fi does seem to be down. I apologise. If you can bear to wait, I’ll track down the old-school phone – the handset seems to have vanished. A previous guest must have left it somewhere.’
‘That’s fine,’ says Nick. It isn’t, but what choice does he have? He smiles politely and raises a hand, making his way to the open door of the drawing room.
Inside, it’s much warmer. The walls are a dull gold, hung with more portraits, and a long sideboard holds bottles and glasses, with a small sign reading ‘Honesty Bar’. The gold brocade curtains are now firmly closed, and people are grouped on old velvet sofas and sitting in wing-backed armchairs around an enormous marble fireplace, where logs burn invitingly in the grate.
Nick feels the tension leaving his body like smoke curling up the chimney. Harriet isn’t expecting him for hours; it wouldn’t hurt to have a drink before he calls. He makes his way to the group by the fire, seeing now that one is a little girl of about eight.
‘Evening. May I join you? I’m Nick Caldwell.’
‘Blimey.’ A balding man in his fifties wearing a navy blazer and chinos stands up and offers his hand. ‘Where did you come from, mate? I thought the roads were impassable.’
‘Well, clearly they weren’t, Alan,’ says the woman sitting alongside him. She’s around the same age, with white-blonde, straightened hair and a stretchy red dress that reveals a scoop of leathery, tanned cleavage.
‘My car broke down,’ Nick explains. ‘I found this place by accident.’
‘Good job you did,’ says the woman. ‘You’d have died of exposure out there. I’m Lorraine Pinner, and this is my husband, Alan. We’re meant to be at our daughter Jade’s for Christmas, but somebody’ – she glares at Alan – ‘forgot the present bag for the kiddies and we had to turn back. By the time we got past Durham it was snowing cats and dogs and we’ve had to stop.’
‘It’s “raining cats and dogs”, not snowing—’ Alan begins, but Lorraine speaks over him.
‘Anyway, nice to meet you, Rick. Always fun to have a good-looking man joining proceedings.’
Nick has no idea how to respond, given the implied insult to her husband. Fortunately, another guest touches his arm. She’s a tall, slim young woman with long, shining brown hair and the wistful prettiness of a seventies perfume advert. She’s wearing a beautifully cut blue silk dress, there’s a diamond on a chain round her neck, and at her feet is a Gucci bag. He wonders why someone with money has chosen to stay at this slightly dilapidated hotel.
‘Violet,’ she says. Her accent is upper-middle-class. ‘Nice to meet you. Have a seat – I’ll introduce you. None of us knew each other until about half an hour ago.’
‘Well, everyone seems to be getting along famously,’ Nick says, aware that he’s slipping seamlessly into professional ‘bland small-talk’ mode. There’s a rattle behind them. Donal is pushing a drinks trolley laden with crystal glasses holding amber liquid.
‘Ooh, cocktails!’ says Violet, clapping her hands. There’s a general murmur of satisfaction as he begins to hand them out. Nick swigs his and almost chokes – it’s alarmingly strong for a pre-dinner drink. Or maybe he’s just lost his touch, now he can barely manage a glass of Merlot without falling asleep.
‘This is Penelope and Branson,’ says Violet, indicating a couple perched on the adjacent sofa, who smile slightly and lift their hands in greeting. She’s what the women’s desk at the Globe would call ‘well-preserved’, with a sharp black bob and, Nick suspects, a great deal of Botox maintaining a brow so smooth it gleams in the firelight. She has hazel eyes, neat, dark eyebrows and she’s dressed in a cashmere jumper, smart jeans and brown leather knee-boots – the safe ‘casual evening’ uniform of the upper middle class. Her husband, Branson, has the handsome, dissolute features and sculpted hair of a news anchor gone to seed and wears a grey suit and blue tie.
‘Good to meet you.’ He has an American accent and pumps Nick’s hand as if he’s jacking up a car.
‘Are you over from the States for Christmas?’
‘Sort of, yes.’ Penelope has a Home Counties tone, redolent of beloved spaniels and boarding-school hockey. ‘Actually, we were rather lucky. We won a competition for a few days’ stay here before Christmas, and thought we’d combine it with a trip to Devon, to see my grown-up son.’
‘Didn’t count on the English winter weather though!’ Branson chuckles. ‘Looks like we might be stuck here a while.’
‘Oh, don’t say that!’ Penelope turns to him, a flash of dread in her eyes. ‘I’m not sure how many times we can play Scrabble in the library.’
‘Well, not if you’re gonna insist on the English spellings …’ Branson catches Nick’s eye, humorously seeking support. He suspects the American is the sort of man who constantly seeks the validation of other men.
‘There are plenty of other board games, I believe.’
The speaker is a much older woman, who has been hidden by the wing of the armchair by the fire. Now, she leans forward and smiles at Nick. She must be in her late seventies at least, but she’s beautifully dressed in a smart, ivy-green woollen frock, a sparkling brooch pinned to her shoulder. Her white hair is clipped into a feathered bob, and her large blue eyes and winged cheekbones recall the beauty she must once have been.
‘I’m Matilda,’ she says. ‘Mattie, if you prefer. Did you have far to go this evening?’
Nick feels as though he’s talking to the late Queen. ‘I was heading home to West London,’ he tells her. The whisky cocktail is blazing a warm path through his body, flooding him with contentment. ‘My wife and baby daughter are waiting for me, so I need to call home. Donal’s trying to find the phone for me.’
‘I’m sure there must be a telephone here somewhere,’ says Matilda comfortably. ‘How lovely to have a baby daughter. I don’t have much family left these days, so I usually come to Mistletoe Manor for Christmas. I stay till New Year, then I toddle off home.’
‘Where is home?’
‘Oh, not far away from here,’ Matilda says. ‘Not as far as London. Now, have you met David and Emily?’
The man on the sofa breaks off from the conversation he’s holding with the little girl, and leans in, smiling.
‘Welcome to our motley crew,’ he says. ‘Appalling weather, though of course this one loves snow.’
Emily, who has long, dark curls and is wearing a Fair Isle jumper and pink dungarees, smiles. ‘I do so love snow,’ she agrees. ‘Maybe we can play in it tomorrow?’
David puts his arm around her. ‘We’ll have to see, sweetheart,’ he says. ‘It might be too deep by then.’
‘So we’ll build an igloo.’
Matilda laughs. ‘The endless inventiveness of eight-year-olds,’ she says. ‘We’ll all get frostbite in there, Emily. Still, if we do, I believe your daddy is a doctor and he can fix us.’
‘Are you?’
Nick doesn’t know why he’s so surprised, but David looks like any tired middle manager in his forties. He’s wearing a navy jumper and jeans, and his thinning, sandy hair is brushed over to hide a bald patch.
‘I am.’ He raises his glass. ‘GP, single dad, absolute demon at Jenga.’
‘Perhaps that’s what we should play instead of Scrabble,’ observes Penelope.
‘No, wait!’ Lorraine bangs her empty glass on to the table. ‘I know what we should all play – charades! It’s nearly Christmas: let’s have some fun!’
She gazes round at the assembled guests. ‘We all know the rules, right?’
There’s some doubtful murmuring, and Matilda says, ‘Well, yes, but I’m not sure …’
‘Oh, come on,’ says Lorraine. ‘I’m up for a bit of fun. At Jade’s, we’d be doing a conga round the tree by now.’
‘You would,’ mutters Alan.
Penelope looks horrified. ‘Well, rather charades than a conga, perhaps,’ she says. ‘I suppose it’ll fill the time before dinner.’
Five minutes later, Donal reappears. ‘I’ll look for the phone now,’ he murmurs to Nick. ‘Been a bit busy.’
Nick feels a spike of irritation – he needs to speak to his wife, before she’s left wondering if he’s dead in a snowdrift. But Donal has also delivered a second round of cocktails – Nick vaguely wonders what this will add to his bill, but they’re now going down very easily – and they’ve all written down a book, film or song, screwed up the bits of paper and thrown them into the empty glass proffered by Lorraine.
‘We’ll go from the left.’ She looks flushed and excited. ‘You first, David!’
He picks out a twist of paper, grimaces as he reads it, and stands up.
‘Book and film,’ they all chant. ‘Five words. First word …’
David is clutching his neck, and writhing.
‘Choking!’ shouts Lorraine.
‘What film title starts with “choking”?’ demands Alan and she shoots him a contemptuous glance.
‘Death,’ Nick says, and David makes a ‘carry on, try harder’ gesture.
‘Killing … illness …’
Nick glances at Emily, who is watching her father’s grim pantomime, wide-eyed. He’s now miming stabbing himself in the chest. Nick hopes it will end soon, to avoid the little girl having nightmares.
‘Murder!’ cries Violet, and David almost collapses with relief, pointing dumbly at her.
It’s swiftly established, thanks to his enthusiastic impression of a train, that David is attempting to mime Murder on the Orient Express.
Alan goes next, and does a fair job of Death of a Salesman. Nobody guesses Lorraine’s (‘Mean Girls?’ asks Matilda, puzzled. ‘Whatever’s that?’) and now it’s Nick’s turn.
He opens the paper and reads Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
‘Sewing!’ calls Penelope, as he attempts ‘Tailor’.
‘Waddle!’ shouts Alan while he marches on the spot to indicate ‘Soldier’. As he stomps and swings his arms, Nick has a brief moment of lucidity, despite the cocktails. An hour ago, he was driving home to his family. Now he’s drunk and humiliating himself in front of strangers with no chance of escape for at least twenty-four hours. He makes his hands into binoculars and creeps to the back of the couch, scanning the faces of the other guests.
‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,’ says Matilda. ‘You’re a spy!’
Nick opens his mouth to congratulate her, when a noise cuts through the air. It’s the doorbell, jangling and clashing; by the sound of it, someone is leaning on it, hard.
‘Who the hell …’ begins Alan, and Lorraine adds:
‘In this weather!’
The group falls silent, craning their necks to watch Donal unlocking the great door and pulling it open. A strong wind gusts into the hall, bringing a flurry of snow, and he steps back.
‘My goodness, you’d better come in …’ Donal begins; then he cries out as the figure on the doorstep stumbles, clutches at him – and before any of them can reach the hall, collapses heavily to the floor.
3
Nick gets there first as Donal struggles to slam the door on the wild blizzard. It’s a woman, wearing dark clothes now sodden with melting snow. Her long hair is a tangle of wet rope, she has no hat, and as Nick gently turns her over to take her pulse, he realises she’s not clutching a baby, his first, horrified thought, but a small dog, which wriggles from her arms, revealing itself to be a miniature French bulldog.
‘Can you hear me?’ Donal is kneeling at her other side, gently patting her damp, frozen cheek.
‘We should get her to the fire,’ says Nick. ‘It’s very cold in this hall.’
‘Lift her with me?’ But as they prepare to carry the slight woman to the drawing room, she stirs and opens her eyes.
‘Gaia?’ She half sits and her voice rises in panic. ‘Where’s Gaia?’
‘Your dog?’ Nick scoops the little creature up and passes it to the woman, who clutches it to her.
‘Oh, thank Goddess,’ she murmurs. ‘I thought she’d gone …’
Between them, they support her into the drawing room. ‘Oh my goodness, you poor thing!’ exclaims Matilda. ‘Here, have my chair by the fire.’ She rises with surprising alacrity and moves to the long sofa to sit beside Violet.
‘What on earth happened?’ Lorraine asks, her eyes gleaming with curiosity. ‘Did you break down, like Nick here?’
‘No, I just couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t safe to go on.’ The woman gives a little hiccupping laugh and a paroxysm of shuddering passes through her. She has a low voice and a gentle Yorkshire accent. ‘Before I found you, I thought I was going to fall in the river, or die of hypothermia.’
There’s a murmur of concern, and Nick now sees the woman is wearing small, fabric ballet shoes, which are soaked through. Her feet are grey-blue with cold and her teeth are chattering.
‘Get those wet clothes off immediately,’ says Penelope briskly. ‘You can borrow some of mine, come up to my room … I’m so sorry, what’s your name?’
‘Destiny.’
There’s a momentary silence.
‘Destiny?’ repeats Matilda blankly. ‘What an … unusual name.’
‘I was born Deborah, but when I became enlightened, my soul name, Destiny, was gifted to me during a meditation.’
Nick suppresses a snort.
‘If you can manage the stairs now, you can have a hot shower too, and join us for dinner,’ says Penelope kindly. ‘What a ghastly experience you’ve had.’
‘That’s very nice of you,’ murmurs Destiny, ‘but I’ve no money on me – I can’t pay for food or anything – I was on my way to the yoga class I teach.’ She stands up, still clutching Gaia.
‘Here,’ Violet says. ‘Give me the dog. We can look after him while you change.’
‘She’s a she,’ says Destiny. ‘Or at least, that’s her biological sex. It’s hard to tell how she identifies, but I’ve been told she sees herself as much bigger than she really is.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Lorraine says. ‘Told by who, love?’
‘Gaia. Shared meditation is vital if you live with a companion animal. I ask her telepathically what’s wrong, and she puts pictures in my mind.’
‘Pictures of her lunatic owner,’ Alan whispers to Nick.
Penelope appears to be losing patience. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘You’ll go into cold shock if we don’t get you warmed up fast. Chop, chop.’
Destiny reluctantly hands Gaia to Violet, who happily fusses the little dog, and follows Penelope upstairs.
Nick hears her saying, ‘But the money …’ and Penelope replying, ‘For goodness’ sake, we’re hardly going to throw you into the snow and leave you to die,’ as they head up.
Matilda looks unnerved, perhaps by the stranger’s sudden arrival, or her peculiar take on the world. She sips the remains of her whisky cocktail, staring into the fire.
‘I wonder why she doesn’t have a phone?’ Lorraine says. ‘Everyone has one. Our Jade can’t get her Brett and Kyle off theirs. Snapbang this, Insta that, they’re on it at all hours. It’s no wonder they’re always tired.’
Donal returns, and clears his throat. ‘Once everyone’s ready,’ he says, ‘dinner will be served in the dining room, down the corridor across the main hall. Our chef, Colt, wasn’t expecting quite so many for dinner but we’ll do our best!’ He laughs awkwardly. Nick feels sorry for the younger man – he’s been thrust into a situation that’s tricky both logistically and financially, with the arrival of two unexpected refugees from the storm. He hopes the owner won’t object to Donal giving Destiny food and a room for the night – it would be inhuman to refuse her. He thinks about the wild snow, the gale slamming into the hall like a violent intruder. Sending her out there again would be akin to murder.
In the dining room, there’s a log fire in the grate of the marble fireplace and a long, white-clothed table with ten carved wooden chairs set in the centre of the large room. The panelled Georgian shutters are closed against the storm, the walls are painted a soft, sky blue, and huge, gilded mirrors reflect the light from the central silver candelabra, which gleams on the polished glass and china.
Nick thinks of what Roly Barrington, food critic of the Globe, would write about what he’d probably call:
… this charmingly shabby Yorkshire bolthole, with its pretensions to grandeur reminiscent of a duchess fallen upon hard times. The historic décor is an hommage to the establishment’s long-flown past, yet the contemporary menu is anything but, albeit that our much-anticipated Gordal olives (£5) were a meagre offering indeed …
