Murder at Mistletoe Manor, page 29
They stare at her, dumb with horror. ‘In what way fitting?’ asks Violet eventually.
‘It continued the Christmas theme,’ says Matilda. ‘Catherine loved the festive blaze. We’d all gather round the fire, toasting crumpets, telling jokes. Such a pretty little girl …’
She really is insane, thinks Nick. What do you do with somebody like this? Would she live out her days in a secure psychiatric hospital, rather than prison?
‘I knew David had sedatives with him,’ Matilda goes on. ‘I stole them from his bedside table, and I crushed up four or five, then I tapped on Deborah’s door in the early hours. I told her I couldn’t sleep because I was frightened, and I asked if she’d share a cup of herbal tea with me.
‘She agreed; she was kind like that.’ Matilda smiles fondly, as if remembering a particularly special friend. ‘I’d already brought the Yule log upstairs with me, and I smashed the smoke alarm with it. I was afraid you’d all wake up, but I was going to say I was sleepwalking. A hackneyed excuse, I know, but in the end, I didn’t need it.
‘Deborah passed out very quickly, and I carried in the log – firelighters from the cupboard, too: it’s a treasure trove. I made sure it was left unlocked, so anyone could access it. Then I lit the wood, left, and locked her door behind me.’
Matilda looks at Nick. ‘Shame you woke up. I was hoping to leave the blaze a little longer, but the job was done, so it didn’t really matter.’
‘And then you put the firelighters in my bedside drawer,’ says Violet.
‘Yes. I wasn’t sure they’d be found, so I was going to come up with some reason to look in there – a stolen necklace, perhaps, one of my diamond brooches missing … but Nick got there first. A very useful stooge.’
The worst thing is, she’s right, thinks Nick. He has aided and abetted Matilda at every turn; suspecting everyone but her, blaming Colt, accusing Violet … He wonders if another career would suit him better. ‘Third village idiot’ in a Jacobean play, perhaps.
‘What would you have done if the snow hadn’t trapped us?’ Nick asks. ‘Killed Penelope, of course, but then what?’
‘Oh.’ Matilda gives a little one-shouldered shrug. ‘I’d have made my accusations and gone home. Then it would have been up to the police to make their arrests.’
‘Accusations?’ asks Branson. He can barely speak with the pain of betrayal and loss. He must know now that Penelope targeted him, a rich bachelor who could marry her and whisk her far from the English legal system – just in case anyone ever wondered why she’d allowed a seventeen-year-old who had only recently passed his test to drive home alone in a blizzard. Branson had betrayed his wife – but she had betrayed him first.
‘She means me. She was going to accuse me.’ David finally removes his hands from his face. He appears to have aged by several years during the course of Matilda’s revelations. His entire body shakes. Nick sees Lorraine instinctively reach out her hand to comfort him, then swiftly withdraw it. ‘I can’t lose Emily,’ David says, tears thick in his voice. ‘She’s everything to me.’
‘Oh dear.’ Matilda gives a little laugh. ‘I’m afraid you already have. So, David.’ She smiles brightly at him. ‘Will you tell them all the final part, or shall I?’
‘The police will be here soon,’ says Violet, nodding to the window. The vehicle is almost outside. ‘Tell us.’
‘I had no choice,’ begins David. ‘I never wanted to do it.’
‘Oh, the classic excuse of weak men and women everywhere,’ says Matilda. She adopts a high, wheedling tone. ‘It wasn’t my fault. She made me do it.’
‘Shut up,’ he says. ‘I’ll tell it in my own way. At least allow me that.’
She shrugs, and sits back. Her diamond and emerald brooch sparkles in the light, and Nick realises it’s supposed to be a sprig of mistletoe – Matilda’s final statement of allegiance to the house and its memories.
‘Matilda invited Emily and me for Christmas,’ David says. ‘She wrote to the hospital where I work, and she said she didn’t have long left to live, and she yearned to see her granddaughter before it was too late. She guilt-tripped me and I gave in. Look at her,’ he adds bitterly. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s like a cockroach.’
‘Go on,’ says Nick. David takes a long, quivering breath.
‘When I arrived, she was all sweetness. I thought she’d begun to move on at last. She wanted to spend time with Emily, get to know her – we planned to drive over to Manchester, meet the cousins and see JoJo … I thought it might all be OK. But the night we arrived, Matilda made sure Donal was out of the way, and then she told me her plan.’
David pauses. ‘I was almost physically sick. I’m a doctor, my whole life has been about making people better, saving their lives, not …’ He convulses.
‘Not what?’ asks Alan coldly.
‘Not murder!’ David cries. ‘Matilda blackmailed me. She told me that she wants full custody of Emily – and I knew why. So she could pretend that my daughter was Catherine reincarnated, so she could dress her up like a doll and play old-fashioned games, and teach her to be just the same, and woe betide Emily if she ever reveals a hint of her own personality, rather than her mother’s! I won’t let that happen, I’d rather die. She’s everything I have and I’m her father,’ David spits. ‘You had your chance at parenthood; your daughters grew up with you, in a happy, stable, rich family. Yet you want to take Emily’s childhood away from me.’
Lorraine clears her throat. ‘I’m not hearing much about what Emily wants here,’ she says, disgusted. ‘It’s all about you two, dividing her up like a bloody cake.’
David blinks. ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘But it was my love for Emily that drove me to this point. Matilda told me that she was too frail to kill Penelope – so I had to do it.’
There are gasps. Branson turns to look at the smaller man, hatred in his eyes.
‘She said that if I didn’t, she’d tell the police I was an abusive father and that I’d hurt Katy during our marriage,’ David goes on. ‘She’d fabricated letters and emails supposedly from my wife – David blames me for the IVF not working, he’s been hitting me again, Mummy, I don’t know what to do … She showed them to me. Matilda is vicious,’ he hisses. ‘She had it all planned. I was so afraid, I knew how convincing she could be. I knew she could stop me taking Emily home, that she’d weave a pack of lies and before I knew it, social services would be involved, and Matilda would be stepping in, with her millions and her big house. I’d lose Em. I couldn’t take that risk.’
‘So you killed Penelope.’
David nods, his eyes squeezed shut. ‘It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do,’ he whispers. ‘She pulled off her eye-mask and she looked at me …’
Nick thinks of Penelope’s terrified, staring eyes, the fear she must have experienced as she died.
‘Who wrote the note?’ asks Violet.
‘I did.’ Matilda smiles, as though accepting praise. ‘The fountain pen’s in my handbag; I know you were looking for it, Nick. I wanted her to know she wasn’t safe, I wanted her to feel a fraction of the fear that I felt when the police knocked on the door that night.’
‘You didn’t go straight to the police?’ Alan demands.
‘We were trapped! She’d cut the phone lines – there was no going to the police,’ David insists.
All that hopeless checking and wondering when they’d be fixed … Nick feels another wave of rage.
‘You could have warned Penny, given her the chance to tell me, so we could get away,’ says Branson.
‘Except you weren’t there,’ David says. ‘You were with your mistress.’
‘How did you know he wouldn’t be there, in bed with Penny?’ Violet whispers.
‘I didn’t,’ David admits. ‘I mildly sedated his drink earlier on, thinking he’d be knocked out.’
‘So that’s why you couldn’t manage to …’ murmurs Violet, and Branson flashes her a look of fury.
‘Then Matilda gave me the star and she told me to use that as a weapon. I gave it back to her afterwards …’ David weeps again. ‘I had no idea she’d wrap it like that, so Emily would see it …’
‘I thought she’d be playing with the dog,’ Matilda says. ‘That’s why I gave her the lead – it was Pixie’s, Catherine’s little puppy when she was a child. She loved that dog.’
Nick tries to follow the dark labyrinth of Matilda’s mind, and fails.
‘Besides, I took the star away again afterwards.’ Matilda shrugs. ‘I wrapped it in a jumper in my wardrobe, so you didn’t even have to look at it.’
‘Donal,’ says Nick. ‘You killed him, too.’
David nods. ‘She upped the threats, she said if I didn’t, she’d tell you all that she’d seen me hurting Emily. I knew she meant it.’
‘So,’ says Branson, ‘she made you use the fairy lights on Donal?’
David nods. ‘All part of her sick game. Festive deaths. Because without Katy, nobody’s allowed to be happy at Christmas.’
‘So what did you do?’ Lorraine’s lips are white; her words emerge in a whisper.
‘I waited in the cupboard on the upstairs landing until I heard Donal come out of his room, and then I just followed him and I … It was quick,’ he adds. ‘There was the element of surprise, so …’
‘Oh, well done,’ says Nick. ‘Good for you. At least he didn’t suffer.’
‘I didn’t mean …’
‘And you knew about what she’d done to Colt, with the berries? Or was that you as well?’ Nick asks.
David shakes his head. ‘No! I mean, I guessed, but …’
‘But of course, you couldn’t say anything.’ Lorraine gives him a twisted little smile. ‘Poor you, David, forced into this awful position.’
‘I was!’
Lorraine looks away, revolted by his self-pity.
‘What was the endgame, Matilda?’ Nick asks. The snowplough is now throbbing just feet from the front porch. They can hear the collapsing snow as it pushes through the melting drifts. ‘What did you want, in the end?’
Matilda smiles. ‘It was simple. I wanted Penelope to be punished. I wanted a relationship with my granddaughter. I realised I could kill two birds with one stone. David’s so blinded by his love for Emily, I knew he’d do what I wanted. It was his only hope of keeping her.’
David looks at her. ‘Job done, then,’ he says, in a half-whisper. ‘Job done.’
Somebody is pounding on the door. ‘Police! Open up!’
Nick runs to admit them, and a team of armed officers race in, a sea of dark stab vests and helmets.
‘Someone get Emily!’ David shouts. ‘She’ll be scared!’
‘There’s a child?’ One of the men turns urgently to Nick.
‘Yes, she’s fine, she’s in the library—’ Two of them race down the corridor as he points, followed by Lorraine and Violet.
‘We know who did it,’ Nick tells the officers. He points at Matilda and David, who have been frogmarched into the hall by Branson and Alan. ‘They’ve confessed.’
‘Not much use if it’s verbal,’ one says.
Nick takes his small Dictaphone recorder out of his pocket, its red light still glowing.
‘I suppose journalists are still useful for something,’ he says quietly, handing it over.
David is sobbing as he’s handcuffed, begging to see Emily.
‘David, no,’ Nick says. ‘Don’t let her see you like this. Maybe she can visit you when things have settled down.’
Nick watches as the trembling doctor is led away to the cars that have followed the snowplough up the drive, blue lights silently whirling over the snow. David’s sobs carry in the still air as car radios crackle with instructions.
A female police officer is reading Matilda her rights. She is blinking as though she doesn’t quite understand, affecting shock and bemusement. She doesn’t yet know about the recording, now in the possession of the North Yorkshire Police.
Nick looks down the corridor. Alan is leading a small phalanx of officers towards the kitchen. Three bodies, all frozen. They’ll need the ambulances that are currently crawling up the drive.
‘Please,’ Matilda cries, a broken plea. ‘My photographs – you can handcuff me, but before you take me away, I must have my pictures.’
An officer nods at his junior, and she takes Matilda’s arm. ‘Come on then,’ she says. ‘Quick as you can.’
Clearly, they have judged this elegant, frightened old woman poses no flight risk. Nick isn’t so sure.
Upstairs, doors are being flung open, there are barks of ‘Clear!’, thudding, booted feet. As Nick stands in the hall, waiting to give his statement, Emily emerges from the corridor. She’s holding hands with Lorraine, who has tears running down her cheeks. Emily’s eyes are dry, her expression pinched with shock and confusion. Violet is following, holding Gaia.
‘What will happen to Emily?’ Nick asks as an officer gently ushers the three of them into a police car.
Lorraine turns. ‘I’m going to find JoJo, Nick,’ she calls. ‘She’s her auntie. She’ll know what to do.’
Nick nods, his heart aching for Emily. Perhaps, finally, somebody will consider what’s best for her. He hopes she can keep Gaia, wherever she goes. As the car slowly pulls away and disappears down the drive, he steps on to the porch again.
There’s a commotion coming from a room upstairs. A female voice shouts, ‘Get down!’ and as he looks towards the noise, a sash window at the end of the corridor is flung up. To his horror, Matilda teeters on the sill. The ground beneath her is impacted snow, flattened by the plough. She holds on to the frame with both hands, swaying. In her black dress, she reminds him of a spider dangling from a thread.
‘Matilda, no!’ yells Nick. He’s already skidding and slithering towards the scene, arms outstretched to catch her. He can hear the female PC gabbling into her radio.
Matilda jumps.
She’s lying face down, her limbs making a snow angel on the lawn. The whirring blue lights give the blood trickling from her head a surreal, purple sheen. Nick watches as an officer takes her pulse, tries again, looks up at his colleague, shakes his head.
She got away with it, then. She was never going to prison. That was obvious from the moment she began to speak, revealing what he should have known from the beginning. He sees it now, like a projector spooling film through his mind.
Christmas Eve. Katy, driving through the snow to Mistletoe Manor, that cosy hotel of her mother’s where they always celebrate the holidays as a family. Perhaps Matilda no longer wants to host at home, now her husband is gone, and this offers the solution. Katy decides to go straight there before the weather sets in, rather than wait until morning. Her husband will come after work; they’ll all be together. The snowstorm worsens as Katy peers at the road, windscreen wipers battling the relentless snow.
Nick sees Matilda decorating the tree, the box of Nativity costumes and baubles beside her. The fire blazes in the hearth, and Matilda smiles, thinking of her newest grandchild, little Emily. They’ll lift her up when she arrives tomorrow, and help her to place the pointed star right at the top of the tree.
There’s a knock and Matilda hurries to answer, snow blowing in as she opens the huge door. Two police officers stand on the step. Their hats are held in their hands and before they speak, she knows.
She’ll never celebrate Christmas again.
It’s mid-afternoon when Nick is released from questioning, and the low sun is glowing orange over the manor. Before he calls Harriet, he shakes Branson’s hand.
‘You’ll go back to America?’
‘Not yet. First I’m heading to Devon. It’ll be tough, but I’d rather they hear it from me.’ He swallows. ‘I’d like to offer Pete my support. Look after him a little, now his mom’s gone.’
‘Good of you.’
‘I’ve got a lot of making-up to do.’
The others are at the police station. Once the police are happy with their statements, Lorraine and Alan will finally head to Jade’s. They should make it in time for dinner, if they can hire a car. The officer driving Alan didn’t look thrilled by the enormous bag of children’s presents stuffed into the boot. Nick assumes that Violet will head back to her flat in London. It’s all over with Branson. Perhaps she’ll rethink her life, Nick muses. Do some good in the world.
He won’t keep in touch with any of them. They were never friends, just strangers thrown together in the most appalling circumstances. It’s too late to develop trust now. There’s just one person he’ll contact after Christmas. Someone to whom he owes a heartfelt apology.
‘He came into the station this morning,’ the sergeant taking his statement told Nick. ‘He was frozen solid; we were worried he had hypothermia. That’s why we came straight here. He told us what had happened.’
‘You didn’t get a text from Lorraine Pinner?’
The sergeant shrugged and shook her head. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘Do you know where he’s gone for Christmas?’
‘Yeah, his cousin came and picked him up. He’s gone there for a bit.’
Nick nodded. He can find the address. He’s a journalist.
Epilogue
There is no snow left in London. Nick gazes down at the street where fairy lights glow in each front window and festive wreaths decorate the doors. The pavements are cold and grey, the small gardens bare and brown under the streetlamps. His heart lifts at the sight of the familiar scene. Down the road, he can hear carol singers approaching, chorusing a ragged ‘Good King Wenceslas’.
‘It melted almost as soon as it arrived.’ Harriet has her arms around his waist. She’s barely let go since he got here, though she’s finally stopped crying.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she kept saying. ‘I got your voicemail, but I couldn’t hear the name of the hotel – it cut out. The police didn’t want to know; they said they were too busy dealing with “emergencies”.’
