A Date With Death: Cozy Private Investigator Series (Flora Lively Mysteries Book 2) (11 page)

‘Tell me where you were. Tell me right now.’

‘You’re not my mother. I don’t have to report to you.’ He yawned, incensing Flora even further. But then, suddenly, she felt too tired to be angry. She sat down again, and rested her head on her knees.

‘I needed you, Marshall. I looked for you everywhere. It was horrible.’

‘Everywhere?’ There was a pause, and then he said, ‘Okay, I was in the van. I had this stupid idea that you’d come and find me, that we could talk on familiar territory. Maybe I stormed a tiny bit. I was pissed with you about being in Alberto’s film, and I just needed time to calm down.’

‘What, three hours? Since when did it take you that long to calm down?’

‘I went for a walk. Then I came back to the van, you weren’t there, so I went up to the house. And found PC Plod waiting for me, ready to throw me into the cooler.’

He was grinning now, which gave Flora some comfort, but she was still mad at him. ‘Did he tell you that I practically found the body? Didn’t you think I’d be upset?’

‘Hey, come here.’ He sat up and pulled her into an embrace. He smelled of sleep, and of the mustiness she’d come to associate with the yurt. Their yurt. ‘Are you okay? Was it real bad?’

‘Horrible. Just horrible.’ Her words were muffled against his shoulder. She waited a beat, then pulled back a little. ‘And Jack, he seems to think that any one of us could have done it. Even me! I know he’s only doing his job, but –’

‘He thinks I did it, that’s obvious. Is he stupid, as well as ugly?’ Marshall shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it about the freaking cap. I hadn’t even noticed I’d lost it. Must have fallen off when I went to see him.’

Flora stared. She got up and wrapped her arms around her body, her palms under opposite elbows. ‘You were there? You were in Alberto’s room?’

Marshall rolled off the bed and started to rummage around in his bag. ‘Sure,’ he said. He looked up at Flora, then pulled a face. ‘But not while he was being murdered, obviously.’

‘But, Marshall … What were you doing there?’

‘I went to tell him to back off you.’ He stood, holding a clean pair of jeans and a red cotton T-shirt. ‘He told me to go to hell. So I told him what I thought of his sleazy little set-up, of the likes of him, then I left. He was very much alive when I left him, which is exactly what I told your friend.’

It was his sneer that set her off again. That, and the sheer stupidity of what he was saying. ‘Are you crazy? Don’t you realise the trouble you’re in now? And stop it with all the “your friend” crap. What have you got against him, anyway?’

‘Erm, let me see … He thinks I killed someone. How’s that for a reason?’

Flora grabbed the curtain and yanked it across the length of the yurt. She swirled around, pulled off her pyjama top, then grabbed a bra from the pile of clothes by her bed. Fastening it behind her back, she said, ‘He talks like that about you too, did you know that? “Where’s your friend?” he kept saying, and if you hadn’t stormed off like a dick, if you hadn’t tried to interfere and be the big man with Alberto, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’ She picked up a clean blouse, but it was inside out with the buttons still done up. She began to wrestle with it furiously.

‘I’m sick of you and Celeste being sarcastic about each other, too. Why can’t my friends just get on, that’s what I’d like to know? This competitive behaviour, it’s just ridiculous.’

‘Flora.’

‘No, I haven’t finished,’ she said, flapping the blouse in front of her to loosen it out. ‘I want you to make more of an effort with her. She’s shocked by all this too, and don’t think you’re the prime suspect – it was Eduardo’s sword we found sticking out of Alberto’s stomach. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it.’

‘Flora.’

She finally got the blouse the right way around, and began to unbutton it. ‘What?’ she snapped.

‘I can see you. The curtain – you didn’t shut it all the way.’

She spun around, her face burning. ‘You could have closed it yourself, couldn’t you? Been a gentleman.’

‘I could have,’ he said, grinning. ‘But the view was too … interesting.’

Flora gave up and turned away, pulling on the blouse and buttoning it with shaking fingers. She picked up her bag, laid a hand on her chest to try and calm her breathing, then walked out of the yurt.

‘I’ll see you at breakfast,’ Marshall called.

She shook her head, but there was no one there to see her but the birds.

***

Breakfast was a sombre affair without Alberto. Flora had only known the man a couple of days, but she could see that his death had left a hole in Rojo Productions a mile wide. Raquel sat at the opposite end of the table to Vincenzo, barely making eye contact with him, and Celeste looked pale, the bags under her eyes even more pronounced without her usual layering of make-up. Marshall was deep in conversation with Nick. There was no sign of Gabriella. Only Eduardo appeared buoyant, or at least he ate with gusto. The rest of them picked at the dishes of bacon and eggs and sausages and beans and toast that Sidney had brought out.

‘Do you think I might have a glass of orange juice?’ Flora asked the butler when he did a second circuit of the long wooden table with a pot of coffee. He seemed to sag, just for a second – a movement so small it was almost imperceptible. ‘On second thoughts,’ Flora said, pushing back her heavy chair, ‘I can pop to the kitchens and grab it myself. Save you the trouble.’

‘No trouble, Miss.’ He gave one of his bows, which Flora had started to think of as a little obsequious, or even slightly mocking, and turned on his heel towards the service door at the far side of the room.

‘Why doesn’t he send out one of the kitchen staff?’ she said. She addressed her question to Celeste, who was seated on her right. ‘I mean, he seems to do just about everything himself.’

‘Control freak,’ Celeste said. ‘There’s a lot of it about.’

Flora looked at her friend’s profile, then shook her head. She put down her napkin and stood up. No one looked at her, not even Marshall. She followed Sidney through the door, which led into a long grey corridor, and out into what she guessed to be a disused laundry room, complete with ancient mangle and huge, unwieldy press. She looked around. There were two doors leading off the laundry room. To her left she could hear clattering, which was probably Sidney in the kitchen. She reached for the door on the right and tried the handle. It opened. She swallowed. By her estimation, she’d only seen a quarter of the house so far. The Beaumont family lived in the west wing when they were home, and right now they definitely weren’t home. Fine, thought Flora, but what about the rest of the house? What if the murderer was hiding out in here somewhere? Hanley Manor was huge – there were plenty of places to hide. She thought back to Sidney’s face when he’d discovered her trying the door in the main hall yesterday. Not only annoyed – he’d also seemed scared. But what could he possibly be scared of?

Not quite knowing what she was doing or why, Flora opened the door and slipped through, closing it softly behind her. She stood for a moment with her back to the door, and heard Sidney on his way back to the dining room. No doubt he’d think she’d got fed up waiting for her orange juice and left. She was sure no one had seen her come in this way, but it was probably better not to hang around too long, just in case.

A corridor, grey like the one before it, led away from her. She followed it, trying each door she passed. They were all locked. Why keep them all locked like this? The corridor turned to the right, and then the left, and then she reached a narrow staircase under a long, high window. The window, Flora saw from halfway up the stairs, looked out over the hills to the north. She figured she was roughly in the centre of the house. Up here was another long corridor, but this was more ornate, if a little shabby, stretching away with white wooden panelling on either side. The ceiling was high, the carpet once plush but now worn away almost entirely down the middle. She could hear nothing, not even a clock ticking. The carpet, or perhaps the very walls, smelled musty.

She crept along, her blood pounding in her ears. Her stomach felt jittery, but also heavy and clenched. A tentative hand went out to every door, but each one was locked. At the end of the corridor, she stopped. There was one door remaining. The handle turned smoothly in her palm. Not locked.

Flora took a breath. What are you actually doing here? she asked herself. If she really thought there might be a murderer hiding in this part of the house, this behaviour was worse than crazy. And if she was merely being nosey, just satisfying her own curiosity, that was somehow worse. She had no right to be creeping around a private country house, no right at all. But she knew she’d have to look. Every damn door was locked except this one. She
had
to look.

She glanced behind her. The corridor was still empty. Slowly, she pushed the door open. It swung back, not creaking, making no sound whatsoever. She slipped inside the room. It was large, high-ceilinged and light, with three or four wide windows and bare floorboards. It was completely empty – no furniture, no paintings, nothing. Flora’s eyes were drawn to a black shape hanging from the right-hand corner of the farthest wall. Black and mushroom-shaped, creeping down the plasterwork, spreading its fingers like a malevolent octopus. Mould. She shivered, remembering the mystery she’d solved at the Maples last year. Her friend had nearly died at the hands of a crazed old man with a passion for mould. But her shiver wasn’t merely down to the memory of Joy’s ordeal – it was damp up here, really damp and chilly, despite the sunny aspect.

Now her eyes had adjusted to the brightness, she saw that the spreading mould wasn’t the only sign of neglect. The floorboards were pitted with rot, and the window frames dripped with flaking paint. There were little piles of brown droppings on the floor, and as she stood, taking it all in, she thought she heard scurrying above her head. Mice in the attic, and possibly in the walls as well. Mice, or rats. Or both. She gave a disgusted sort of shrug, and turned back to the door. It was a shame, that was all, to let a beautiful old house go to ruin like this. The owners should be ashamed of themselves.

Sidney was standing in the doorway.

The butler wore an expression Flora hadn’t imagined he’d be capable of. His mild obsequiousness was gone, replaced by a look of outrage and fury. And also that strange hint of fear. His eyes were lasers, boring into her. Flora began to speak, to try and explain, but he cut her off with a wave of his fist.

‘What the hell are you doing? Guests are not allowed up here, no one is allowed up here. What do you want?’

His words were furious, but also slightly plaintive.

‘I’m sorry,’ Flora said, taking an involuntary step backwards. The thought crossed her mind that maybe Sidney had killed Alberto. Maybe the director had insulted him, or had found him in an uncompromising position, or something else her panicked brain couldn’t come up with right now. She might be in a room with the murderer. In a deserted room in a deserted part of the house where no one would ever find her …

‘And now you’ll tell everyone,’ he said, his face breaking out into a sweat. ‘You knew, didn’t you? That’s why you were trying to get down to the kitchens yesterday. Now they’ll all find out, and with a murder here as well we’ll be finished.’ This last came out as a wail, and Flora took another step back.

‘Tell everyone what?’ she said, trying to process his words. Was he confessing to something?

‘They’ll sack me,’ he said, and then he sank to the floor and sat there, his legs stretched out amongst the mouse poo, his back against the peeling door frame. ‘I knew it wouldn’t work. I tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t listen.’

Flora chose a relatively clean patch of floor, then crouched down low, still about ten or twelve feet away. ‘Tell who? Tell them what?’

If this was a confession, she might as well hear it before he came after her as well. There was no way she could get past him without a struggle – a struggle she would no doubt lose. Better to placate him, get on his good side. But even as she thought this, Flora had the sense that Sidney wasn’t Alberto’s killer. He seemed wracked with despair, not remorse. She watched him close his eyes briefly, then focus back on her. The accusing glare remained, but his voice was quieter now. He said,

‘My employers are broke. Totally and completely broke. But you know that already, don’t you? Tommy – young Tommy, that is – he came up with the idea of keeping the house on to make money, a few rooms for visitors, using the ballroom for weddings. Parties.’ He sighed, his shoulders slumping inside his starched uniform. His head seemed to sink into his collar. ‘I told them it wouldn’t work. Only three of the rooms are habitable upstairs, and downstairs is even worse. I have to keep everything locked up, and there’s no one else, just me, and it’s too much to keep on top of, with the damp and the dodgy plumbing and the rats and the draughts and the constant repairing of every little thing …’ He stopped, as though running out of steam.

‘It’s just you?’ Flora couldn’t believe it. The place ran like clockwork. The meals, the room service, the immaculate silverware. She heard the scurrying again and looked up. Rats. Ugh.

Sidney nodded. ‘My wife used to help out, in the good old days. Before old Tom lost the Beaumont fortune, before my wife got sick.’ He saw Flora’s sympathetic expression and shook his head. ‘She’s still with us, but she can’t work anymore. We live in the gatehouse, on the edge of the estate. She’s lived there all her life. Her mother was housekeeper here, when the Beaumonts were the richest family around. It would kill her to move away.’

‘And if the family can’t keep this place running …?’ Flora said, taking in the dilapidated room with a sweep of her hands.

‘They can’t much longer. They’re nearly bankrupt as it is. Using it for film sets is always a risk – bloody demanding lot, they are. But that’s where the real money is. Weddings and parties don’t bring in nearly enough, and Tommy told me to just get on with it, to do my best.’

‘Which you have been,’ Flora told him, her tone emphatic. She had the urge to put an arm around him, to prop him up, but he was too dignified for that. She could kick herself for causing him this upset. All because she was so bloody nosey. ‘Sidney, I’m so sorry I came up here. Really I am. But I won’t tell anybody about this, I promise.’