Murder at Mistletoe Manor, page 6
‘David’s right,’ says Nick, and Alan nods soberly.
‘Fine. What do you suggest?’
‘We look at the facts,’ says Violet irritably. ‘Obviously.’
Branson wipes a hand across his brow, and Nick sees his crested gold signet ring – clearly, he comes from money. He wonders if debt could have played a part. Life insurance? But surely then he’d have staged an accident – Penelope’s death is quite obviously a murder; a tableau designed to be discovered, the Christmas star a brutal message – I know what you did.
He glances around at the men. David, Alan, Branson himself, Donal, and then there’s Colt – the one inhabitant he hasn’t yet met, whose bedroom is just up the stairs close to Penelope’s room.
Branson lights a cigarette and takes a shaky gulp of sugared coffee. Nick loathes cigarette smoke, but the man’s just been bereaved.
‘Really?’ mutters Destiny, flapping a hand.
‘Disgusting,’ says Lorraine. ‘It’ll kill him, you know. I made Alan give up when we met; he hasn’t touched one since. On our first date, straight up, I went, “Alan, if you think I’m going to snog somebody who tastes like an upended ashtray …”’
‘Oh, let him, this once,’ murmurs Violet. ‘He’s just been bereaved.’
‘He won’t be long for this world either, if he carries on with that filthy habit,’ Destiny mutters.
‘Calm down!’ Violet turns. ‘He’s trying to give up!’
Nick pushes a saucer towards Branson to serve as an ashtray, and hopes Mistletoe Manor isn’t sophisticated enough to have a sprinkler system.
‘Where were you in the early hours of this morning?’ he asks.
‘Good point,’ puts in Alan. ‘Where indeed?’
Nick hopes Alan isn’t going to behave as a Greek chorus, the unwelcome Watson to his Holmes.
‘I know it seems a little crazy.’ Branson sits upright and sucks hard on his cigarette. ‘Look, it’s kind of embarrassing. I just … well, the truth is, I snore. Real bad, actually. I have a deviated septum, it means I don’t breathe well lying down.’
Nick sympathises, having been forced to the spare room on several occasions when he’s gone heavy on the red wine. ‘You sound like a bloody gaggle of geese,’ Harriet once hissed, wild with sleepless rage.
‘Alan snores,’ puts in Lorraine sympathetically.
‘Because I have allergies, Lorraine!’ snaps Alan.
Destiny asks, ‘Have you tried nettle-leaf extract?’
‘Go on, Branson.’ Nick wonders if Poirot ever felt as though he was herding bad-tempered cats.
‘So,’ Branson sighs. ‘We’d had a long flight, breathing in recycled air, I’d had something to drink, I’m a smoker … she was desperate to sleep. At home, we often sleep in separate bedrooms.’
Nick nods. He’s beginning to understand. ‘We had … not a fight,’ Branson says, closing his eyes. ‘But she wasn’t happy. She kept elbowing me, waking me up … in the end, I got up and left the room, with my stuff, and I tried a couple of doors and found an empty room. And that’s where I slept. If I’d only stayed … or even checked on her this morning …’ The words peter out, guilt and grief cracking his voice.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Matilda says. Nick wonders if that’s true. Branson could easily have killed Penelope, then crept out and fashioned his story. But the star, he thinks. That was the act of a vengeful lunatic, not of a violent man suddenly enraged with his wife. It must have some meaning.
‘Do you know what time you left?’ Nick asks.
‘Around midnight. No later than that, as I looked at my cell to see if there was any signal. I can’t recall exactly, but it was eleven-something. Forty, fifty.’
‘How would the murderer know you were going to leave, though?’ Nick asks. ‘Seems oddly convenient.’
Branson shakes his head. ‘Maybe they’d have killed me too, if I’d been there. You know, Nick, I’ll never forgive myself. If I hadn’t snored …’
‘You can’t blame yourself for that.’
‘Oh, I can.’ Branson looks crushed by grief. ‘I do.’
Nick takes a long drink of coffee, eats a biscuit, waits a few beats for Branson to rejoin the conversation.
‘How long have you been married?’
‘Five years.’
Nick’s surprised. He had thought they were a long-married couple with grown children.
‘Pete’s not mine – didn’t I say before?’ Branson says. ‘He’s Penelope’s son from her first marriage, to some prick named Sebastian. We met when I was over here on business, at someone’s dinner party. She was divorced, I asked her out; we got along. Still do. Did.’
‘No affairs, then, or …’
Branson shakes his head quickly. ‘We were yin and yang. I see that on the surface it looks a little strange: rich, brash American guy; reserved English rose. But we brought the good stuff outta each other. We had a lot of fun.’
Violet puts her cup down with a loud crack. ‘Sorry,’ she murmurs. ‘Just tense.’
Nick nods. ‘What brought you here?’ He wonders why a rich couple who could go anywhere in the world would choose genteelly declining Mistletoe Manor.
Branson takes another sip of coffee; his hand is steadier this time.
‘Penny was in a Facebook group, something to do with growing up in Yorkshire. She was born in Harrogate. A few weeks ago she got a message via the group to say she’d won a prize draw for a two-night stay at a “classic Yorkshire hotel”. We checked it out and it was all legit – we thought it’d be a fun way to begin the trip.’ He takes a shuddering breath. ‘It was snowing hard when our plane landed, and by the time we got here … well, you know yourself.’
‘Who owns the hotel?’ asks Alan. ‘Could it be them?’
‘Just some business, Donal thinks,’ Nick tells him.
‘It was a real Facebook group,’ Branson adds. ‘I checked. I took screenshots – Penny could be a little too trusting.’
‘Was there anyone Penelope had issues with?’ Nick presses on. ‘Maybe someone in England – in her family, perhaps, or a business contact?’
Branson stares into the fireplace, tears still standing in his blue eyes.
‘Nobody,’ he says. ‘Penny worked in publishing before we got married. It was all expensive lunches with middle-aged lady authors, and literary festivals in tents with warm white wine. She’d never fallen out with anyone in her life, as far as I know.’
‘And her family?’ Nick feels horrible for pressing on.
‘Pete and her parents – they are her family. She was an only child. She was everything to them.’
‘Any problems with money? Could she have got into debt?’
‘No! And if she had, all she’d have to do is tell me, I’d have fixed it for her. She wasn’t a gambler or a drinker – a couple of glasses of wine at parties, that was all she ever drank. And barely anything since she moved across the pond. It’s less of a drinking culture there. She liked the health-kick aspects of LA life – yoga and juicing and long walks on the beach.’
Branson smiles sadly. ‘We have a house at the shore. It’s beautiful. Penny hates winter weather.’ He shakes his head. ‘As soon as I saw the snow falling at the airport, we should have forgotten the whole damn plan. Then she’d still be here.’
He falls silent, and Nick lifts the coffee pot, a question. Branson shakes his head.
‘I gotta go,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna try calling the police again. Then I’m gonna find the guy who did this, and listen, I like you all but I swear to almighty God, if it was any one of you, I will kill you with my bare hands, and I will happily do the time for it.’
9
There’s a silence as Branson departs. Lorraine clears her throat.
‘Can I have a word, Nick?’ she asks. ‘In private?’
He’s surprised. ‘Sure. Where?’
‘Don’t see why you can’t say it to all of us,’ huffs Alan.
‘Yes, if you have suspicions, we should all know,’ agrees Violet.
‘It’s not … it won’t take a minute. I’ll explain later.’
Lorraine glances round and Nick sees Donal pushing in the tea trolley, on his everlasting round of serving and clearing.
Has he already moved Penelope’s body? Nick shudders inwardly. Donal’s hands are pale and clean on the trolley handle, his nails gleaming.
‘How do we know Nick’s not the killer?’ Alan asks suddenly.
‘I don’t,’ Lorraine says. ‘But I feel like he’s not.’
‘Gaia likes him,’ says Destiny as the little dog snuffles at Nick’s trousers. ‘She’s never wrong.’
‘For God’s sake—’ Alan begins.
‘We’ll chat in the library,’ Lorraine says. ‘It’s just by the dining room; anyone can come and check I’m alive if they want.’
Nick follows her as the others turn to watch them leave.
The library immediately becomes Nick’s favourite room in the hotel. While the others are a little shabby but striving for elegance, here the worn furniture and moth-eaten rugs only enhance the old-fashioned, peaceful atmosphere. Nick battles a powerful urge to lock the door and remain in here until rescue arrives, surrounded by the comfort of books.
Three of the walls are fitted with tall, glass-fronted mahogany cupboards holding huge sets of Victorian encyclopaedias, a blue, cloth-bound set of Anthony Trollope novels, several feet of long-forgotten tomes on botany and country pursuits, and a whole section of travel books from the days when ‘travel’ meant a creaking wooden ship and an iron-studded steamer trunk. By the fire, which is unlit, there’s a table set up with a game of chess, several blue, velvet-upholstered wing-backed chairs, their arms worn to a shine, and, in the corner, a shelf holding a stack of battered jigsaws and board games: Monopoly, Scrabble, Cluedo. Nick almost smiles at the irony, but he feels too sick at heart.
The long window’s damask curtains are open, and the snow is now almost halfway up the frame. Still it comes down, as though a curse has fallen on the hotel and everyone within it.
Lorraine is wearing her sequinned sweatshirt, and looks like the queen of the office party but for her expression, which hovers somewhere between horror and anxiety.
‘Have a seat,’ Nick says, indicating one of the wing-backed chairs. ‘What’s on your mind?’
Lorraine narrows her large blue eyes. ‘What I wanted to say, Nick, is – have you thought it might be Donal? He’s always there, isn’t he? Creeping about, pushing his little trolley. Listening.’
‘He seems pretty trustworthy,’ Nick says. ‘He works here, so it’s unlikely he’d have known Penelope in any context other than as a guest. Why would he?’
‘I don’t know!’ Lorraine says irritably. She fiddles with her hair. Her eyes remain fixed on Nick. ‘You’re the detective, apparently. I’m just saying. For all we know, Penelope’s his long-lost mother and she abandoned him at birth.’
‘Well, Donal’s from Dublin, so I don’t …’
‘I’m just saying we don’t know,’ insists Lorraine. ‘There was a thriller on ITV, one of those ones with a massive glass house and a woman in a silky dressing gown drinking wine out of a giant fishbowl. She got herself murdered by some guy who turned out to be the friend she’d turned down at university, and he became a property developer, purely to …’
Nick feels he’s losing control of the conversation.
‘Lorraine, am I right in thinking that you and Alan didn’t know Branson and Penelope before last night?’
‘Do we seem like we’d be mates?’ Lorraine rolls her eyes. ‘Yank millionaire and his posh wife, hanging out with Lorraine and Alan from Gateshead?’
He almost laughs at her tone of outrage. ‘Did she tell you anything last night? Anything that might have shed any light at all on why someone might have a grudge?’
Lorraine takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, like a medium entering a trance.
‘She said she was looking forward to Devon … she’s not keen on Newport Pagnell services … I had a horrible cheese toastie there once, and I mentioned it, that’s why it came up in conversation.’ Nick tries not to let his impatience show. ‘And I asked her why she’d moved to America and she said there’d been a bit of an unhappy time in England before that, and she wanted to make a new start.’
Nick looks up. ‘That’s interesting. Did she say why it was unhappy?’
Lorraine shrugs. ‘I assumed her divorce. We’ve all had unhappy times, haven’t we? I certainly have.’
He nods. ‘Did you hear anything at all, during the night?’
‘Only Alan, grinding his teeth. He always does it when he’s stressed. Sounds like a bloody galleon at anchor, creaking away.’
‘But no doors opening, screams, anything like that?’
Lorraine shakes her head. ‘If I’d heard a scream, I might have mentioned it before now, Nick.’
‘Sorry.’
She sighs, and plays with the chunky pink glass ring on her finger, spinning it and twisting the stone. He waits.
‘Everyone seems nice, don’t they?’ she says eventually. ‘It’s hard to believe any one of us would have killed her. I mean, some are a bit nuts, like Destiny – I think of her as Density now, in my head,’ she adds.
Nick smiles.
‘But not killers. Except for Donal. You know what, Nick, I have a sixth sense about people. Not a woo-woo one, like Miss Yoga out there, just … a feeling. He’s almost too helpful, isn’t he? Always there when you need something, always knows where everyone is. I’d keep an eye on that one.’
‘I’ll have a chat with him.’
‘I would. Though I don’t doubt he’ll be very convincing in his innocence.’
‘Has he said anything – done something, even – that’s made you suspicious?’
‘Not as such. He’s just one of those people who sets me on edge. Too smooth. Nothing’s ever too much trouble. It makes me uneasy. And,’ she added, ‘he’s got keys to all the doors. He knows what room everyone’s in. He knows when we go to bed and get up. He probably knows our inside leg measurement and the name of our cousin’s first cat. He knows this hotel so well he could find a particular room with his eyes closed and get back to his own before he opens them. And he’d have access to the Christmas decorations.’
‘But this is all speculation,’ Nick says. She shrugs.
‘Isn’t what you’re doing speculation too? Asking us all probing questions, and hoping we don’t lie through our teeth?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘Well, then.’ Lorraine stands. ‘I’m going, before my hubby comes looking for me. He may not show it, but he worries.’
After her departure, the library settles into silence. It’s as though a flock of tropical birds has flown from a tree.
Nick stands, promising himself he’ll come back for a proper look at the books later. He wants to ask Donal a few questions – and he needs to meet Colt.
Donal is still in the drawing room, serving tea and shortbread to the depleted group by the fire. Destiny and Branson are upstairs, Nick assumes. The table lamps are lit – though it’s still morning, the snow pressing at the window has created a gloomy, twilit atmosphere. It’s still falling, and it’s beginning to feel personal. Harriet will be out of her mind with worry, he thinks, and nobody’s going to be mending phone masts in this blizzard.
‘I just can’t,’ Violet is saying to David. ‘I honestly think I’m going to be sick. Thinking of her lying out there in the snow …’
‘It’s horrible, I know,’ David says quietly, clearly mindful of Emily, who is behind the couch, playing with an old-fashioned game of bagatelle she found in a cupboard, rattling marbles round the board. She’s wearing large, bright yellow headphones, nodding along to music downloaded on David’s phone. Upside down, Nick reads the screen: ‘THE VERY BEST OF DISNEY’. Again, it strikes him that David is doing his utmost to protect his daughter. Jingle is sleeping on the rug, purring before the fire like a vibrating cushion.
Gaia must still be with Destiny, he thinks, and feels slightly annoyed. Surely she could loan the dog to Emily just for a little while?
Lorraine and Matilda are looking at a book, heads together like children. Lorraine raises her head.
‘The Secret Garden!’ she says. ‘Those lovely old illustrations. I found it in the library when I was looking for something to read to Emily.’
‘My daughters loved this story,’ says Matilda. She seems fully recovered from the shock of Penelope’s death. ‘Poor little Mary Lennox, left without a family, forced to travel thousands of miles to a new, unfamiliar country. A lost love and a grieving man … it’s barely a story for children at all, really.’
‘Oh, I think all the best children’s stories deal with the big stuff of life,’ says Violet. ‘I once worked with someone who …’ She pauses. ‘Look at this lovely picture of the ivy.’
‘Donal,’ says Nick as the manager finishes laying out the tea things. He thinks of Lorraine’s comment: ‘nothing’s ever too much trouble’.
The younger man turns and smiles automatically. ‘Nick. Tea for you as well?’
‘Actually, I was wondering if we could have a quick chat?’
Donal nods, his professional smile falling away. ‘Of course. I’ll just take the brandy glasses to the kitchen, then I’m all yours.’
‘Actually, I’d like to meet Colt too. May I come with you?’
‘Sure. He’s just prepping some cold stuff for lunch – we’ve plenty of food in the chest freezers, but …’ He swallows. ‘Well, they’re in the outhouse, so, you know. He’d rather not if he doesn’t have to …’
‘Oh God. Yes. Of course.’
Matilda looks up from the book. ‘I suppose we should have a chat at some stage, Nick,’ she says. ‘I don’t imagine I’ve much to offer, but perhaps I’ll remember something … I suppose one never knows what will turn out to matter later on.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’s so hard to believe.’
Nick is struck afresh by the surreal horror of it all. A brave, ageing widow, always alone at Christmas, and he’s planning to quiz her about a brutal murder. ‘No rush,’ he says. ‘Whenever you feel up to it.’
