A Dark and Stormy Night (23 page)

When Rose had poured the boiling water and put the pot on the tray, I murmured my thanks and escaped to our bedroom, where Alan was pacing, in his dressing gown.

‘Safely returned from my dangerous mission,' I said, and put the tray down. ‘My love, I really am sorry to worry you, but you know me.'

‘For my sins,' he said, but with a smile. ‘You can't have had much of a talk with Mrs Bates. I've only just got out of the tub.'

‘She wouldn't talk at all – back on her high horse. I don't think I'll ever be an Englishwoman, Alan. I just can't get the hang of “dealing with the servants”.'

‘Good job we don't have any, then. I gather she was so annoyed with you she forgot the milk?'

‘I didn't dare ask, but I imagine we've run out, or else it's turned. And I didn't really want the biscuits, but I didn't want to offend her. I'm sure they're homemade, and they look delicious.'

‘They are,' said Alan, popping a second one into his mouth. ‘Go ahead. You walked off your breakfast.'

‘I'd have to walk home and back to walk off
that
breakfast,' I retorted, taking a biscuit. ‘And speaking of home . . .'

‘Yes. I tried once while you were downstairs. No signal. But I'll try again.' He found the cell phone, pushed the button for Jane Langland's number, listened, and shook his head. ‘A signal, but full of noise,' he said, closing the phone. ‘It's progress of a sort. Now, are you ready for a nap, or do you want to do some more exploring with me?'

‘Not outside! I just got clean. I have to start our clothes washing, but after that – what did you have in mind?'

He leered at me and twirled an imaginary moustache. ‘What I often have in mind – but later, m'dear, later. For now, how about the case of the hidden mummy?'

TWENTY-FIVE

‘
I
t's not so bad with lots of light,' I said in some surprise. We were in the bedroom with the hidden room, and Alan had opened the concealed door – carefully, so the grisly contents wouldn't fall out again. Alan had invited Tom and Lynn along, so he would have some help moving the mummy, and Ed, to take pictures of all the stages, and of course Pat came along with Ed. Jim and Joyce were there, too – it was, after all, their house, and their mummy, so to speak. So we were quite a little party, missing out only Laurence, who was still keeping to his bed, and the vicar, keeping watch over him.

The room was very cold. Either the central heating hadn't yet extended to this room, or it hadn't been turned on here. I shivered, not only from the cold.

Lynn wasn't terribly thrilled about seeing the horrid thing again, but neither Alan nor Tom would allow her to stay alone in her room, so she and I stayed in a corner of the room, looking the other way, while the men very carefully moved the body out of its prison and placed it on a writing table, Ed documenting every step of the way. Jim and Joyce watched with, I thought, great distaste, while Pat was frankly enjoying the proceedings.

‘I don't
quite
understand about the preservation of the body,' said Lynn. ‘I thought mummification was a complicated process, embalming and wrapping and all sorts of gruesome proceedings.'

‘I don't know a lot about it either, but I'm sure I read in some book or other that natural mummification can take place when the conditions are right. It would be very dry in there, next to the fireplace, and surely hot when there were fires. The dryness would help, but I would have thought the heat would cause decay, rather than preservation.'

‘But there would have been very little heat, actually,' said Joyce, who had drifted over to join us. ‘This was one of the rooms that was apparently never used, or not for the past many years, anyway. No one ever told us why not. I suppose I thought it was simply a matter of too many rooms to look after, and never having enough guests to need the space. I know when we first looked at the house, this room and several of the others in this wing looked like Miss Havisham's parlour, right down to the spider webs. Ugh!' She shuddered. ‘It almost put me off the place for good.'

‘It's a pity,' said Lynn. ‘It's a lovely room, and once you get the grounds cleaned up, the view will be spectacular.'

‘Yes, but don't you see?' I was getting excited. ‘There might have been a very good reason why this room, and the adjacent ones, were shut up and never used. If someone in the family knew—'

There was a subdued commotion in the other corner of the room. ‘Eureka!' said Pat softly, and Ed chimed in ‘Gloriosky!'

We looked over to see Alan looking gratified. He held in his hands a small dark object, while from his fingers dangled a black chain.

‘We've covered her face, ladies, so you can come and see without becoming unduly distressed.' Alan talks that way when he's reverted to policeman mode. We moved nearer. I sniffed cautiously, not sure how much of this my stomach could take, but to my surprise the only smell was a faint mustiness, so I got close enough to see properly.

‘This,' said Alan, holding up the chain, ‘has been blackened by soot, but it will clean up nicely, I think, as I believe it's gold. I don't know if you can tell, in its piteous state, but it seems to be a locket. If there are pictures inside, and if they are well-preserved, it may be of great help in identifying our young lady here. However, we may not need it for purposes of identification.'

With the air of a conjuror producing the rabbit, he held out Exhibit B. ‘We found this wallet in her pocket. It contains money, in the old currency. We haven't counted it, but I saw a pound note and a half-crown. Those haven't been around for a while, which will help us date the corpse. Most important, however, is this.' He showed us, in a cracked vinyl window pocket, what was unmistakably a driving licence. ‘Issued in 1958 to one Annie Watkins, born 1940, address Branston Abbey, Branston, Kent.'

There was a quick intake of breath from someone in the room. I couldn't tell who, and neither, from the look on his face, could Alan. In that moment he might have been a hound who had caught a faint whiff of fox. His head came up and I could almost see his nose twitch. ‘Did that ring a bell with someone?' he asked, calmly enough.

Pat. It had to be Pat. She was the only one whose history in the village went back far enough. She would hardly have been born in 1958, I thought, but she might have heard something, might know the family name. She said nothing, however, and her face was utterly bland – which in itself was enough to tell me she was hiding something.

‘Very well. If you think of something, any of you, come and tell me at once, please. I ask this for your own protection. Knowledge of a crime—' He was interrupted by a loud noise out on the lawn, loud and getting louder. ‘Is that what I hope it is?' he asked, and strode to the window.

Just settling on the lawn, with that gentle lightness that always seems so inappropriate for something its size, was a small blue-and-white helicopter marked POLICE.

Alan sprang into instant action. ‘Tom, I'll ask you and Jim to stay here with our poor Annie. Dorothy, I'd like you with me, if you will.'

Leaving the rest to do as they liked, which was to trail after us, Alan sprinted out of the room at a much faster pace than I could manage. ‘I'll catch up,' I called to him. He said something and disappeared around a corner. It was left to Joyce to guide us through the maze of corridors and staircases and out the terrace doors.

Alan was shaking hands with the two people who had climbed out of the helicopter. The rotors had, mercifully, been turned off and were slowing to a stop. I panted up to Alan, and he turned to me. ‘Dorothy, these are Detective Constables Price –' he nodded to the attractive woman – ‘and Norris. My wife, Dorothy Martin.' We shook hands all round, and Alan went on. ‘The constable in Branston saw our signals and sent for help, and this is the handsome response.'

‘I can't possibly tell you how glad we are to see you,' I said, nearly in tears from the relief. ‘I don't know what Alan has told you, but we've been having a pretty bad time here.'

‘I've not said anything beyond that. Miss Price, Mr Norris, if you will come into the house— oh, this is our hostess, Mrs Moynihan – perhaps we can take a few minutes to put you in the picture.'

The detectives followed us back to the house, and I heard Miss Norris say, ‘Retired CC – watch your step.' I think Alan heard, too, but he made no sign.

Once we were settled in the drawing room, Alan kept his attitude of command. He had no intention, I knew, of stepping on the Kent Constabulary toes. On the other hand, he wasn't going to cede entire control of the case to a couple of young constables who knew nothing of the nightmare we'd been through.

‘With your permission, officers, I think it might be wise to assemble the entire household to hear the story. I may forget something, and it will give you the opportunity to decide what's best to be done. Agreed?'

DC Norris was inclined to resent being told what to do. ‘With respect, sir, we have no idea why we've been called here, or what your wife means by “a bad time”. As I'm sure you must know, there are more emergencies out there than we can cope with, and we're all very tired. We're merely responding to an SOS.'

‘I do appreciate that, Mr Norris, and I sympathize. That's why I want to save as much of your time as possible.'

Norris gave a brief nod, and Alan touched the bell. We sat in uncomfortable silence until Mrs Bates appeared. Alan explained the situation to her and said, ‘If you will, I'd like you to bring everyone else in the house in here, including you and Mr Bates.'

‘Mr Upshawe, sir? And the vicar?' She sounded disapproving.

‘If Mr Upshawe is well enough, yes. This shouldn't be too taxing for him, I hope. And please take DC Price, here, to the . . . I don't know what it's called, the bedroom where we found the mummified body—'

There was a stifled exclamation from both the constables.

‘—and tell Mr Moynihan and Mr Anderson to come down, too. Miss Price, here's the key to that room; you'd best lock it behind you.'

I was hard put not to giggle. The release from the strain of the past several days was part of my light-headedness, but I was getting a real kick out of watching Alan bossing around two police officers over whom he had no authority whatever. ‘I'll bet you were a holy terror to your own troops,' I whispered to him. He merely lifted an eyebrow.

It took a little time, but we were finally assembled, all of us. All of us who were still among the living and could be found, that is. That was the first point Alan addressed.

‘Now, I'm sure you'll want to begin this interview in your own way, Mr Norris, but you should know that three of our original party are not here. One is dead and two are missing, one at least of those presumed dead.'

DC Norris seemed about to strangle. ‘Mr Nesbitt! There is a body upstairs, apparently long dead. Now you're telling me there's another body around here somewhere, and two more possible deaths? What the bl— what on earth has been going on here?'

‘Oh, and there's the skeleton under the tree,' Alan went on, blandly, ‘but we'll come to that in due course. As to what's been going on, that's what I hope you can help us determine.'

Slowly and carefully, with occasional prompting from one or another of the assembly, Alan detailed all that he knew about the eventful weekend. He kept strictly to what was known, leaving out any speculation. Beginning with the storm and the discovery of the skeleton, he led the rapt constables through the death of Harrison and the injury to Upshawe, the disappearance and re-appearance of Julie, Mike's presumed drowning, Julie's second disappearance, and the discovery of the mummy.

‘So you see,' he said finally, ‘why we were rather desperate to get help. I do apologize for usurping your job, but I thought it would be easiest to explain the complicated business all of a piece, as it were. Now I'm sure you have questions for all of us.'

There was a strained silence. Finally DC Norris cleared his throat.

‘As I'm sure you'll know, sir, we were detailed to respond to a distress call, not to investigate a multiple homicide. If that's what this can be called.' He sounded uncertain about the number of actual homicides involved. As well he might.

‘We need to check in with our commander for orders. If the mobiles are working, we can call. Otherwise, I'm afraid one of us, at least, will have to return to Shepherdsford. We're going to need the full SOCO team, and with everything else that's going on . . .' He shrugged helplessly.

‘Yes, I understand. There couldn't be a worse time for you to find this mess in your laps, could there? Your commander would be—'

‘Superintendent Westley, sir.'

‘Ah, yes. And your CC is Sir Robert Bunyard, if I remember correctly.'

‘Yes, sir.' He swallowed and tried to turn it into a cough.

‘Well, you might just tell one or the other of them that I'd be most grateful for any help they can supply. We're not in danger of life or limb here – at least I don't think so – but we
are
badly in need of technical expertise. I've done what I could, but with no forensics team – and no authority – I haven't accomplished a great deal.'

For the first time since the police had arrived he sounded tired, and worried. He ran his hand down the back of his neck in a familiar gesture and then smiled at me in reassurance. I was not greatly reassured.

TWENTY-SIX

M
obile service still being unavailable, DC Norris decided to stay with us while DC Price returned with the helicopter to get more help. Norris had, then, a nice decision to make. Should he stay with one of the bodies (recent, mummified, or skeletal), guard the living victim/suspect (Laurence Upshawe), or keep an eye on all the rest of us (potential victims/suspects)?